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COFVRICHT DEPOSm 



THE MARECHALE 



THE MARECHALE 



THE MARECHALE 

(Catherine Booth-Clibborn) 



BY 

JAMES STRAHAN 

AUTHOB OF "HEBBEW IDEALS," "THE BOOK OF JOB," EIC. 






HODDER & STOUGHTON 

NEW YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






COPTBIGHT, 1914, BT 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 

The right of translation is reserved 



APR ^l 1914 



©■CI.A371251 



JBebtcateb 

WITH REVERENCE AND AFFECTION TO 

THEODORE MONOD 

WHO TAUGHT US TO SAY TO OUR DIVINE MASTER 
"NONE OF SELF AND ALL OF THEE" 



PREFACE 

This book is the unexpected result of a brief 
visit which the Marechale paid her daughter 
and the writer in the spring of this year. She 
was daily persuaded, not so much to talk of the 
past, as to live parts of her life over again, for 
in her case the telling of a story is the enacting 
of a drama. At a meal-time she rarely keeps 
her seat, though she is apparently unconscious 
of leaving it and surprised that she requires to 
return to it. She begins to describe an incident, 
to recall a conversation, to sketch a character, 
and straightway she is suiting the word to the 
action, the action to the word, holding the 
mirror up to nature, using her brilliant dra- 
matic gift, which is as natural to her as singing 
is to birds, to call up faces, to bring back 
voices, to restore scenes, which are all, whether 
grave or gay, summoned out of a dead past 
that has suddenly, as by the wave of a ma- 
gician's wand, become once more alive. 



vi PREFACE 

One day I said to her, "Have you never 
thought of giving all this to the world?" She 
answered, "I am often asked to do so, and 
some day I may." Soon after she surprised 
me by saying, "I have come to the conclusion 
that something ought to be written now, and 
you must write it." 

A mass of materials in English, French and 
German — reports, letters, diaries, magazines, 
and other documents — ^has therefore been put 
at my disposal. I have not used a tithe of 
what I have received, and much of what is 
left is as good as what has been taken. More 
will ere long, I doubt not, see the light. One 
of my best sources of information has been the 
Marechale's own phenomenal memory, which I 
have tested times without number, and found 
invariably accurate, except in dates. Events 
are apt to be associated in her mind not so 
much with years as with homes and children, 
which are much more interesting. 

With regard to the subject of the fourteenth 
chapter, the Marechale would have preferred 
not to break the silence which she has main- 
tained for a number of years, but after reading 
her letters and diaries I have urged her to let 



PREFACE vii 

a brief statement be published, first because 
I feel that she owes something to her old com- 
rades in the fight, and second for the sake of 
her own and her family's future work. Mem- 
bers of the family who have been consulted, as 
well as other friends, desire this even more 
strongly than the writer does. 

This book consists of a few sections from a 
hfe which, hke Mrs. Browning's pomegranate, 
"shows within a heart blood-tinctured." To 
a heart of love add a spirit of fire, and you have 
the Marechale. Blood and fire — that is what 
she was at the beginning, and that is what she 
will be to the end. One has often heard her 
say that she has never been more in her element 
than when, on entering some town, she has 
foimd herself confronted, in a theater or ca- 
sino, by "all the devils of the place." She is 
happy whenever "Jesus is going to have a 
chance for a night." In the natural course of 
things her greatest battles are still before her. 
England has need of her, France perhaps still 
greater need. May it be long before the Mare- 
chale reaches her last campaign! Meanwhile 
the old battle-cry. En Avant! 

The subject of this sketch — written during a 



viii PREFACE 

brief respite from other work — is at present far 
away, but I know that what she desires to give 
to the world is a sense of the Divine, the 
miracle- working" power which rewards a child- 
like faith, and that she will be glad if every 
reader closes the book with a Gloire a Dieu! 

J. S. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I PAGE 

FiNELT Touched to Fine Issues 1 

CHAPTER II 
A GiBL Evangelist 17 

CHAPTER III 
The Secret of Evangelism 39 

CHAPTER IV 
Christ in Paris 49 

CHAPTER V 
Freedom to Worship God ........ 69 

CHAPTER VI 
The Soul of France 109 

CHAPTER VII 

Woman's Vocation . 141 

ix 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII PAGE 

The Renunciation of Home 155 

CHAPTER IX 
The Friendship op Christ 176 

CHAPTER X 
The Burning Question 187 

CHAPTER XI 
The Prodigal Son 207 

CHAPTER XII 
So Great Faith 219 

CHAPTER XIII 
Beauty for Ashes 235 

CHAPTER XIV 
To Thine Own Self Be True 261 

CHAPTER XV 
SuRSUM Cobda! 279 



LIST OF PORTRAITS 

To face pagt 
The Mari&chale Frontispiece v^ 

Catherine Booth 32 \^ 

{From a drawing by Edward Clifford, exhibited in the Royal Academy 
and presented to Mrs. Booth) 

The Marechale in the Cafe 114 y^ 

{From the painting of Baron Cederstrom) 

The Marechale 160 i/^ 

{From a photo taken in Paris, circa 1890) 

The Marechale 302 /^ 

(From a photo taken in London in 1913) 



FINELY TOUCHED TO FINE 
ISSUES 



CHAPTER I 

FINELY TOUCHED TO FINE ISSUES 

In the summer of 1865 William Booth, 
Evangelist, fomid his life-work. For some 
time back his imagination had been more than 
usually active. He could not help thinking 
that all his past efforts had been but tentative 
solutions of a difficult problem. He felt the 
spur of a vague discontent. He seemed to be 
groping his way towards an unrealised ideal. 
At length he got the inner light he needed. 
While he was conducting a series of meetings 
in a tent pitched on the disused Quaker bury- 
ing-ground at Baker's Row, Whitechapel, he 
saw his heavenly vision and heard his divine 
call. He accepted a mission which was no less 
real than those of Hebrew Prophets and Chris- 
tian Apostles. The words in which he describes 
his vocation form part of the history of Chris- 
tianity in England. "I found my heart," he 
says, "strongly and strangely drawn out on be- 
half of the million people hving within a mile 



4 THE MARECHALE 

of the tent, ninety out of every hundred of 
whom, they told me, never heard the sound of 
the preacher's voice from year to year. 'Here 
is a sphere!' was being whispered continually 
in my inward ear by an inward voice . . . and 
I was continually haunted with a desire to 
offer myself to Jesus Christ as an apostle for 
the heathen of East London. The idea or 
heavenly vision or whatever you may call it 
overcame me; I yielded to it; and what has 
happened since is, I think, not only my justi- 
fication, but an evidence that my offer was 
accepted." 

Thus it was that on a memorable June night, 
having ended his meeting and after-meeting, 
he rushed home, tired as usual, but with a 
strange light in his face which indicated an 
unusual glow in his heart. 

"Darling," he exclaimed to his wife, "I 
have found my destiny!" 

His unexpected words, like the touch of 
Ithuriel's spear, proved the quality of his life- 
mate's womanhood. For a moment she trem- 
bled under the test. While her husband 
poured out his burning words about the 
heathenism of London, and expressed his 



FINELY TOUCHED 5 

conviction that it was his duty to stop and 
preach to these East End multitudes, she sat 
gazing into the empty fireplace. The voice of 
the tempter — so she imagined — whispered to 
her, "This means another new departure, 
another start in life." She thought of five 
Uttle heads asleep on their pillows upstairs, 
and remembered that she had already passed 
through more than one time of domestic 
anxiety. But no woman living at that time 
was more ready for acts of daring faith; few, 
if any, were so animated by scorn of miserable 
aims that end in self. After silently thinking 
and praying for some minutes, she said : 

"Well, if you feel you ought to stay, stay. 
We have trusted the Lord once for our support 
and we can trust Him again." 

Thus the die was cast, and the day ended 
with one of those scenes by which our common 
humanity is ennobled. "Together," he says, 
"we humbled ourselves before God, and dedi- 
cated our lives to the task that it seemed we 
had been praying for for twenty-five years. 
Her heart came over to my heart. We re- 
solved that this poor, submerged, giddy, care- 
less people should henceforth become our 



6 THE MARECHALE 

people and our God their God as far as we 
could induce them to accept Him, and for this 
end we would face poverty, persecution, or 
whatever Providence might permit in our 
consecration to what we believed to be the way 
God had mapped out for us." 

One feels perfectly certain that these two 
modern apostles would have fulfilled their 
destiny even if they had stood alone; but it 
could scarcely have been so ample and glorious 
a destiny if God had not given them children 
who inherited their gifts and helped them to 
realise their ideals. It is the simple truth that 
the ruling passion of each of their eight sons 
and daughters has been the love of souls ; each 
of them has exulted to spend and be spent in 
the service of Christ, which is the service of 
humanity; and if one of them has been too 
feeble in her health to be a militant Salvation- 
ist, the great Captain of our salvation accepts 
the will for the deed. 

Among all the bold and original acts by 
which the breath and the flame of a new life 
have been brought into the modem Church, 
none is more striking, and yet none more sim- 



FINELY TOUCHED 7 

pie and natural, than the revival, after all these 
centuries, of the apostolic ministry of wom- 
en. Like Philip the Evangelist of Csesarea, 
William and Catherine Booth "had four 
daughters who did prophesy"; brave and 
gifted English girls who, baptised with the 
Holy Spirit, used their dower of burning elo- 
quence to bring sinners to the mercy-seat. 
If to-day "the women that publish the tidings 
are a great host," the fact illustrates the power 
of example. In every new movement there 
must be daring pioneers and self-sacrificing 
leaders. For woman's "liberty of prophesy- 
ing," as for every other form of freedom, the 
price has had to be paid. The purpose of this 
little book is to sketch the life of the eldest of 
General Booth's four daughter-evangelists, 
who was called to carry the spirit of the Gospel 
— Christ's own spirit of love — first into many 
of the cities of England, and afterwards, in 
fulfilment of her distinctive life-work, into 
France and Switzerland, Holland and Bel- 
gium. If her story could be told as it deserves 
to be, it would stand out as one of the most re- 
markable modern records of Christian work, 
for there is perhaps no one living to-day who 



8 THE MARECHALE 

has seen so much of what Henry Drummond 
used to call "the contemporary activities of the 
Holy Ghost." 

Catherine Booth the elder, the Mother of the 
Army, was already in her thirty-second year 
when she wi'ote her famous brochure upon Fe- 
male Ministry, and, not without fear and trem- 
bling, delivered her first evangelistic address in 
the Bethesda Chapel at Gateshead-on-Tyne, 
where her husband was minister. Little Cath- 
erine, who had been baptised in that chapel, 
was in her second year when her mother began 
public speaking, and in her seventh when her 
father found his destiny. Probably no child 
ever had greater privileges than she enjoyed. 
Her earthly home was a house of God and a 
gate of heaven ; and from the first she seemed 
to respond to all that was highest and best in 
her environment. She was one of those happy 
souls who have no memory of their conversion, 
who cannot recall a time when they did not 
heartily love the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Her father was the centre of all her childish 
thoughts and most vivid recollections, and 
nothing could ever really dislodge him from 
the first place in her affections. An interesting 



FINELY TOUCHED 9 

page from her earliest memories may be repro- 
duced. When she was three or four years 
old, her father was a Wesleyan Pastor in 
Cornwall, where his ministry led to a revival 
in which hundreds of souls found salvation. 
One night Katie was taken by her nurse to the 
meeting, and, on arrival, found herself before 
a flight of steps leading up to the gallery. 
Thinking herself quite a big girl, she wished to 
climb, but nurse, fearing the crowd, snatched 
her up and carried her to the top. At length 
they were inside, and what the child then saw 
and heard remained for ever vividly impressed 
on her imagination. The great building was 
crammed. Away down on the platform stood 
her father, with her mother sitting beside him. 
He was leading the singing, keeping time with 
his folded umbrella, and this was the chorus: 

Let the winds blow high, or the winds blow low. 
It's a pleasant sail to Canaan, hallelujah! 

How well did the eager-hearted little maid 
enjoy that voyage, and how proud she was of 
her captain! The winds blew low and the 
sun shone upon her in those days. But it could 
not always be fair weather. Often since that 



10 THE MARECHALE 

far-oif Cornish time have the winds blown 
high, and sometimes the mariner has felt her- 
self tossed, chartless and rudderless, on dark 
tempestuous seas; but ever the winds have 
fallen, the sun has shone out again over the 
waves; and to how many tens of thousands 
has this daughter of music sung, with sweet 
variations, her father's song — "It's a pleasant 
sail to Canaan, hallelujah!" 

The Booth children were left in no mist of 
doubt as to their future. There was an end, 
a point, a purpose, in their life. They grew up 
in an atmosphere of decision. Many children 
are made timid, diffident, ineffective by their 
training. They are constantly told how 
naughty they are, till they begin to believe 
that they are good for nothing. The Booth 
parents acted on a different principle. They 
had faith in their children and for their chil- 
dren. When Katie was still a little girl in 
socks, her mother would say to her, "Now, 
Katie, you are not here in this world for your- 
self. You have been sent for others. The 
world is waiting for you/' What a phrase that 
was to send a little girl to bed with ! There she 
turned the words over and over in her own 



FINELY TOUCHED 11 

mind. "Mother says the world is waiting for 

me. Oh, I must be good How selfish I was 

in taking that orange 1" The lesson was worth 
£1000 to a child. In the development of 
Katie's mind and character her mother's in- 
fluence was naturally very strong. The fellow- 
ship between them soon became peculiarly 
intimate, and it was the mother's joy to find her 
alter ego in the daughter who bore her name. 
Katie's memories of her early London life 
were bound up with the Christian Mission. 
Hand in hand with her sister Enmaa, and often 
singing with her "I mean with Jesus Christ 
to dwell, will you go?" she walked every Sun- 
day morning along the great road leading to 
Whitechapel. Ineffaceable impressions were 
made on her sensitive mind by the open-air 
preaching at Mile End Waste, Bethnal Green 
and Hackney; by the apostolic spirit of holy 
enthusiasm; by the Friday morning prayer- 
meetings, where the officers met alone to 
plead with God and wrestle in tears for more 
power. All this became the warp and woof 
of her own spiritual life, preparing her for her 
high calling. And, though she could not re- 
member the day of her new birth, she clearly 



12 THE MARECHALE 

recalled several times when she consecrated 
herself, body and soul, to God. In a great 
whitewashed building in the East End her 
father preached on "The King's daughters are 
all glorious within," and she prayed that she 
might have the inner purity which would make 
her a child of God. From a meeting of Chris- 
tian workers she ran home to her room, shut 
herself in, and deliberately gave her heart and 
life to Christ. She could not, perhaps, realise 
all that her covenant meant, but one thing she 
understood — that she was called to yield herself 
completely to do His will and to save souls. 

There was plenty of laughter and fun in that 
home. The Booth children were all born with 
the dramatic instinct, and the spirit of the 
Christian Mission invaded the nursery. Not 
only were the great dramas of the Bible^ — 
Joseph and his brothers, David and Goliath, 
Daniel and the lions, and a score of others — 
enacted there, but the meeting and the penitent 
form, the drunkard and the backslider, the 
hopeful and the desperate case were all repro- 
duced in the plays of the children. Katie and 
Emma brought their babies to the meeting, 
and the babies generally insisted on crying, 



FINELY TOUCHED 13 

to the despair of Bramwell or Ballington, who 
stopped preaching to give the stern order, 
"Take the babies out of the theatre," against 
which the mothers indignantly protested, 
"Papa would not have stopped, papa would 
have gone on preaching anyhow." But the 
dramatic masterpiece was Ballington dealing 
with an interesting case — generally a pillow — 
coaxing, dragging, banging the poor reluctant 
penitent to the mercy-seat and exclaiming, 
"Ah! this is a good case, bless him! . . . Give 
up the drink, brother." That is a scene which 
is still sometimes re-enacted to the delight of 
new generations. 

Jesus Himself watched the games of the 
children who piped and mourned in the market- 
place. Life is none the less strenuous for 
its interludes of mirth. Catherine, who was 
dramatic to the finger-tips, was very early 
mastered by a sense of the sacredness of duty. 
The moral ideal set before her was the highest, 
and her conscience was tremulously sensitive. 
She was oppressed with the sense of what 
ought to be, and inconsolable when she failed 
to attain it. A word of rebuke cut her like a 
knife, and she would sometimes weep far into 



14 THE MARECHALE 

the night if she thought she had put pleasure 
before duty. It is a great thing to make 
religion real to children, and especially to give 
them a sense of the obligation to please Christ 
in everything. Mrs. Booth found Katie ready 
to go all lengths with her, and even to outrun 
her, in her ideas of vi^hat was right and what 
was wrong for Christians. It is amusing to 
hear that when the mother was going out one 
day to buy new frocks for her little girls, 
Katie's words to her were not "Do buy us 
something pretty!" but "Mind you get some- 
thing Christian!" and that when Mrs. Booth 
came home with her purchases, and Katie 
rushed downstairs to meet her, the child's first 
inquiry was, "Are they Christian?" 

But the sense of duty may become morbid 
if it is not transmuted by love. Many servants 
of God never learn the secret which makes 
Christ's yoke easy and His burden light. They 
have to confess to themselves that they cannot 
say, "To do Thy will, O Lord, I take delight." 
It would have been strange if any of the Booth 
children had not learned the secret. Catherine 
discovered it early, learned it thoroughly, and 
it became in after years one of the hidden 



FINELY TOUCHED 15 

sources of her power. As a child she lived in 
union with Christ; she practised and felt the 
Real Presence ; she understood that Christian- 
ity is a Divine Service transfigtired by a Divine 
Friendship. In Victoria Park there was a 
shady alley where she was in the habit of walk- 
ing, because Some One walked beside her! In 
Chfton, where she lived for a time, she had a 
tiny upper room in which she felt that she was 
never alone! That was her childhood's religion, 
which she never needed to change. She found 
it to be utterly independent of time and place, 
form and ceremony. In the glare of public 
life, in the storm of persecution, in the hour of 
temptation and danger, she had always a 
cathedral into which she could retire that she 
might find peace. She was spiritually akin 
with the Hebrew mystics who lived in the secret 
place of the Most High, who had at all times 
a pavilion from the strife of tongues. In her 
Neuchatel prison she wrote some simple words 
which sent a thrill through the heart of Chris- 
tian Europe: 

Best Beloved of my soul^ 

I am here alone with Thee; 
And my prison is a heaven, 

Since Thou sharest it with me. 



A GIRL EVANGELIST 



CHAPTER II 

A GIRL EVANGELIST 

When the heart is warm and full the lips 
become eloquent. Jesus expects each of His 
followers to testify for Him. His redeemed 
ones should need little persuasion to plead His 
cause. Every genuine conversion creates a 
new advocate for His side. Dumbness is one 
of the signs of unreality in religion. The sin 
of silence received due castigation, in public 
and in private, from the tongues of fire which 
the Spirit gave to William and Catherine 
Booth. Their children therefore learned that 
it is every Christian's calling to speak in season 
and out of season for Christ, to press His 
claims upon the willing and the unwilling alike. 
Katie, it appears, began among her little com- 
panions in the Victoria Park. Her old nurse 
still remembers how she would gather little 
groups about her and tell them of the Saviour's 
love. When she was in her twelfth year, she 
lived for some time with a family in Clifton, 

19 



20 THE MARECHALE 

along with whom she attended the Church of 
England. One Sunday evening the Vicar, 
who had noticed her earnest gaze fixed on his 
face, sent for her that he might have a little 
talk with her. He asked her what she liked 
best in the Bible, and she answered "The 
Atonement." He was so struck by her intelli- 
gence that he offered her a children's class, 
which soon grew large. Week by week she 
talked to the little ones of sin and the Saviour. 
Letting story-books go, she went for their con- 
version. Having to return home on her twelfth 
birthday — the last day on which she could 
travel with a half -ticket — she told her mother 
of her great longing to continue her work 
among children. Her mother readily con- 
sented, and soon there was a weekly gathering 
of young folk in a downstairs room of the 
Gore Road house. After a while Katie had the 
assistance of her sister Emma, who was her 
junior by little more than a year. Tears were 
shed, confessions made, and lives changed in 
that room. And there two of the most bril- 
liant evangelists of our time first learned to 
deal with souls. They were in every way kin- 
dred spirits. Long afterwards one finds 



A GIRL EVANGELIST 21 

Emma writing to Catherine : "We will always 
be ^special sisters.' We were Ma's two first 
girls, and were brought up side by side — and 
side by side we will labour and love till we 
stand with our children in her presence again 
before the Throne !" 

Katie was thirteen when she first spoke in 
public. No one asked her to do it ; she yielded 
to an irresistible inward impulse. Her eldest 
brother was conducting an open-air meeting 
opposite a low public-house at the corner of Cat 
and Mutton Bridge in Hackney. Katie was 
beside him, and whispered, "I will say a few 
words." Her brother was delighted, and she 
delivered her message with a directness and 
fluency which compelled attention and proved 
her a born speaker. Not very long after, she 
spoke in the hearing of the General, who wrote 
to his wife, "I don't know whether I told you 
how pleased I was with dear Katie speaking 
in the streets on Sunday morning. It was 
very nice and effective. Bless her!" "From 
this time," says Mr. Booth in a document of 
great importance, "she continued occasionally 
to speak in public meetings, but it was not 
until she was between fourteen and fifteen. 



22 THE MARECHALE 

when she was with me in Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
that I fully realised and settled the question. 
During that time my eldest son joined us for 
a few days, and, with another friend or two, 
held open-air meetings; on one of these 
occasions Catherine accompanied them, and her 
brother induced her to say a few words, which 
it appears fell with extraordinary power upon 
the listening crowd of men and others, such as 
usually comprise the visitors at these places. 
On their return my son described to me the 
effects of her address, but, not being fully 
emancipated from my old ideas of propriety, I 
remonstrated and urged such objections as 
I presume any other "mother, consecrated but 
not fully enlightened, might have urged 
against her being thrust into such a pubhc po- 
sition at such an early age. My son, gazing at 
me with great solemnity and tenderness, said, 
'Mamma, dear, you will have to settle this 
question with God, for she is as surely called 
and inspired by Him for this particular work 
as yourself.' These words were God's message 
to my soul, and helped me to pull myself up 
as to the ground of my objection. I retired 
to my room, and, after pouring out my heart 



A GIRL EVANGELIST 23 

to God, settled the question that henceforth 
I would raise no barrier between any of my 
children and the carrying out of His will con- 
cerning them, trying to rejoice that they, not 
less than myself, should be counted worthy to 
suffer shame for His name." 

From that time Catherine's path was clearly 
marked out. While she continued her educa- 
tion, which included a special liking for French, 
she gradually undertook more and more public 
work. Her father's delight in her ripening 
powers found frequent utterance, and her 
companionship with him during the next six 
years of work is one of the most beautiful 
things in the literature of evangelism. "Wil- 
liam," said Mrs. Booth about this time, "writes 
that he is utterly amazed at Katie; he had no 
idea that she could speak as she does. He 
says that she is a born leader, and will if she 
keeps right see thousands saved. . . . Praise 
His name that she can stand in my stead, and 
bear His name to perishing souls." After 
holding meetings in different parts of London, 
from Stratford and Poplar to Hammersmith, 
Catherine began, just before she was seventeen, 
to conduct evangeKstic campaigns in many of 



24 THE MARECHALE 

the other great cities of England, sometimes 
lasting three weeks or a month. The largest 
building in the town densely crowded Sunday 
after Sunday, and frequently on week nights 
as well; hundreds of people to speak to about 
their souls' salvation every week; correspond- 
ence and travel; ceaseless labour and re- 
sponsibility — ^these things absorbed all her 
energies of body and mind. She was but a 
frail girl, and suif ered for a time from a curva- 
ture of spine, which compelled her to lie on 
her back in great weakness and pain. If she 
yet overcame, it is evident that she was "mar- 
vellously helped." 

In 1876 Katie was one of the speakers at the 
annual Conference in the People's Hall, 
Whitechapel. As she appeared on the plat- 
form, she was described by her lifelong friend, 
R. C. Morgan of The Christian, as "a fragile, 
ladylike girl of seventeen, half woman, half 
child, a characteristic product of the Christian 
Mission, whose words fell like summer rain 
upon the upturned faces of the crowd." This 
was the Conference at which the epoch-making 
measure was adopted of appointing women 
evangehsts to the sole charge of stations. Miss 



A GIRL EVANGELIST 25 

Booth was reserved "for general evangelistic 
tours." 

It is interesting to glance through the num- 
bers of the old Christian Mission Magazine and 
light upon brief reports of Catherine's work. 
From Hammersmith (1875) : "Miss Kate 
Booth [age 16] spent a Sabbath with us, 
preaching twice with great acceptance. A large 
audience was deeply impressed, and some, we 
trust, were truly converted to God." From 
Poplar: "Mr. Bramwell and Miss C. Booth 
were with us. On the Sunday and Monday 
evening the hall was crowded, and some thirty 
souls at the two services sought salvation. . . . 
On Easter Sunday one sister's face was cut 
with a stone, and heavy stones fell upon some 
on many occasions of late; but we endure as 
seeing Him who is invisible." From Ports- 
mouth: "Miss Booth, assisted by W. Bram- 
well Booth, commenced a series of special ser- 
vices, which God owned and blessed to the sal- 
vation of many precious souls. In the morning 
Miss Booth preached, and all felt it good to be 
there. Then a love-feast was conducted by 
W. B. Booth in the afternoon. ... In the even- 
ing Miss Booth preached in the music-hall to 



26 THE MARECHALE 

upwards of three thousand people. The Spirit 
apphed the Word with power, and seventeen 
broke away from the ranks of sin and enhsted 
under the banner of Jesus Christ." Again 
from Portsmouth, some months later: "We 
had a visit from Miss Booth with her brother 
Mr. Bramwell, and again the dear Lord blessed 
their labours in this town. Each service was 
fraught with Divine power; many trembled 
under the Word, and anxious ones came for- 
ward seeking forgiveness of sins, until the 
penitent-rail and vestry were filled with those 
who, in bitterness of soul, sought pardon and 
peace through Jesus." 

From Limehouse (1876) : "We had dear 
Miss Booth and her brother, and a blessed day. 
In the evening she preached with wonderful 
power, and ten or twelve came out for God. 
May they be kept faithful!" From Ports- 
mouth: "Miss Booth's visit was made of the 
Lord a great blessing to us all. Very few who 
listened to her in the morning will forget how 
she pleaded with us to present our bodies a 
living sacrifice. Oh, may God bless her and 
make her a mighty blessing, for Christ's sake." 
From Whitechapel (1877) : "An earnest ap- 



A GIKL EVANGELIST 27 

peal was made at one of our Sunday evening 
services by Miss Booth, from *Run, speak to 
that young man.' Although in very delicate 
health, the Lord blessedly assisted her. The 
word was with power, and eleven souls decided 
for Jesus, among whom was the converted Pot- 
man. This young man was a leader in petty 
and mischievous annoyances. The genuineness 
of his conversion was evidenced by his giving 
up the public-house work to seek more honour- 
able employment." From Middlesbro' (1878): 
"Miss Booth visited us for five days, and 
many blood-bought souls have been blessed and 
saved. Her first Sunday with us was a day 
of power, and it will not be soon forgotten by 
those present. It was a grand sight to see 
a large hall filled to the door with anxious 
hearers, while hundreds went away; but the 
grandest sight of all was to see old and young 
flocking to the penitent form." From Leices- 
ter: "Miss Booth's services may be summar- 
ised in the statement that she had twenty- 
two souls the first Sunday evening, and in- 
creasing victory thereafter right on to the 
end." 

At Whitby there was a six weeks' campaign, 



28 THE MARECHALE 

organised by Captain Cadman. On the &st 
Sunday "the large hall, which holds three 
thousand, was well filled, and in the after ser- 
vice many souls were brought to Jesus." On 
the second Sunday "Miss Booth was listened 
to with breathless attention. In the after ser- 
vice we drew the net to land, having a multi- 
tude of fishes, and among them we found we 
had caught a fox-hunter, a dog-fancier, drunk- 
ards, a Roman Catholic, and many others. In 
the week-night services souls were saved every 
night. The proprietor of the hall had got 
some large bills out announcing 'Troupe of 
Arctic Skaters in the Congress Hall for a 
week,' but he put them oiF by telling them it 
was no use coming, as all the town was being 
evangelised." The concluding services "drew 
great crowds from all parts of town and coun- 
try, rich and poor, until the hall was so filled 
that there was no standing room." In a Con- 
secration meeting, "After Miss Booth's ad- 
dress we formed a large ring in the centre of 
the hall, which brought the power down upon 
us ; hundreds looked on with astonishment and 
tears in their eyes, whilst others gave them- 
selves wholly to God. . . . Ministers, hke Nico- 



A GIRL EVANGELIST 29 

demus of old, came to see by what power these 
miracles were wrought, and, going back to 
their congregations, resolved to serve God bet- 
ter, and to preach the gospel more faithfully 
in the future." 

From Leeds: "Miss Booth in the Circus. 
A glorious month. Hard-hearted sinners 
broken down. Best of all, our own people 
have been getting blessedly near to God. On 
Sunday mornings love feasts from nine to ten. 
... It would be impossible to give even an out- 
line of the various and glorious cases of con- 
version that have come under our notice 
through the month which is past. For truly 
Christ has been bringing to His fold rich and 
poor, young and old." From Cardiff: "The 
question, 'Does this work stand?' received a 
magnificent reply on Sunday. The crowds 
who filled the Stuart Hall, to hear Miss Booth, 
were the largest any one can remember seeing 
during all the four years of the Mission's his- 
tory there." From King's Lynn: "Miss 
Booth's Mission. The town has had a royal 
visit from the Lord of Lords and King of 
Kings. There has been a great awakening, 
and trembling, and turning to the Lord. 



30 THE MARECHALE 

Whole families have been saved, and whole 
courts have sought salvation. Our holiness 
meeting will never be forgotten. . . . The work 
here rolls on gloriously. Not only in Lynn but 
for miles round the town it is well known that 
a marvellous work has been done and is still 
going forward." 

All these battles and victories were naturally 
followed by the General with intense interest, 
and as often as it was possible he was at his 
daughter's side. Mrs. Booth joined them when 
they were opening a campaign together at 
Stockton-on-Tees, and sent her impressions to 
a friend. "Pa and Katie had a blessed begin- 
ning yesterday. Theatre crowded at night, 
and fifteen cases. I heard Katie for the first 
time since we were at Cardiff. I was aston- 
ished at the advance she had made. I wish 
you had been there, I think you would have 
been as pleased as I was. It was sweet, tender, 
forcible, and Divine. I could only adore and 
weep. She looked like an angel, and the peo- 
ple were melted, and spellbound like children." 
The General began to call her his "Bliicher," 
for she helped to win many a hard- fought bat- 
tle which he might otherwise have lost. When 



A GIRL EVANGELIST 31 

the rowdies threatened to take the upper hand 
at a meeting, he would say, "Put on Katie, 
she's our last card; if she fails we'll close the 
meeting." 

"I remember," wrote her eldest brother, "a 
striking instance of this occurring in a certain 
northern town on a Sunday night. A crowd 
assembled at the doors of the theatre, composed 
of the lowest and roughest of the town, who, 
overpowering the doorkeepers, pressed into the 
building and took complete possession of one 
of the galleries, so that by the time the re- 
mainder of the theatre was occupied this por- 
tion of it represented a scene more like a 
crowded tap-room than the gallery of what was 
for the moment a place of worship. Rows of 
men sat smoking and spitting, others were 
talking and laughing aloud, while many with 
hats on were standing in the aisles and pas- 
sages, bandying to and fro jokes and criticisms 
of the coarsest character. All this continued 
with little intermission during the opening ex- 
ercises, and the more timid among us had prac- 
tically given up hope about the meeting, when 
Miss Booth rose, and standing in front of the 
little table just before the footlights, com- 



32 THE MARECHALE 

menced to sing, with such feeling and unction 
as it is impossible to describe with pen and ink, 

*The rocks and the mountains will all flee away. 
And you will need a hiding-place that day/ 

There was instantaneous silence over the whole 
house; after singing two or three stanzas, she 
stopped and announced her text, 'Let me die 
the death of the righteous and let my last end 
be like His.' While she did so nearly every 
head in the gallery was uncovered, and within 
fifteen minutes both she and every one of the 
fifteen hundred people present were completely 
absorbed in her subject, and for forty minutes 
no one stirred or spoke among that unruly 
crowd, until she made her concluding appeal, 
and called for volunteers to begin the new life 
of righteousness, when a great big nawy-look- 
ing man rose up, and in the midst of the throng 
in the gallery exclaimed, *I'll make one!' He 
was followed by thirty others that night." 

Well might the General's hopes regarding 
the young soul-winner be high and confident. 
"Papa," wrote Mrs. Booth, "says he felt very 
proud of her the other day as she walked by 
his side at the head of a procession with an im- 




CATHERINE BOOTH 

'From a portrait by Edward Clifford, exhibited at the Royal Academy 
and presented to Mrs. Booth) 



[Page 32 



A GIRL EVANGELIST 33 

mense crowd at their heels. He turned to her 
and said, 'Ah, my lass, you shall wear a crown 
by-and-by.' " 

With what desires and prayers the mother 
of this Wunderhind followed such a career is 
indicated by her letters. "Oh, it seems to me 
that if I were in your place — ^young — no cares 
or anxieties — with such a start, such influence, 
and such a prospect, I should not be able to 
contain myself for joy. I should indeed aspire 
to be 'the bride of the Lamb,' and to follow 
Him in conflict for the salvation of poor, lost 
and miserable man. ... I don't want you to 
make any vows (unless, indeed, the Spirit 
leads you to do so) , but I want you to set your 
mind and heart on winning souls, and to leave 
everything else with the Lord. When you 
do this you will be happy — oh, so happy ! Your 
soul will then find perfect rest. The Lord 
grant it you, my dear child. ... I have been 
'careful about many things.' I want you to 
care only for the one thing. . . . Look forward, 
my child, into eternity — on, and on^ and ON. 
You are to live for ever. This is only the in- 
fancy of existence — the school-days, the seed- 



34 THE MARECHALE 

time. Then is the grand, great, glorious eter- 
nal harvest." 

Whatever gifts were the dower of the young 
evangelist, she refused to regard herself as 
different in God's sight from the poorest and 
meanest of sinners. If God loved her. He 
loved all with an equal love. That conviction 
was the motive-power of all her evangelism. 
A limited atonement was to her unthinkable. 
How often she has made vast audiences sing 
her father's great hymn, "O boundless salva- 
tion, so full and so free!" When she was con- 
ducting a remarkable campaign in Portsmouth, 
she found herself one day among a number of 
the ministers of the town, one of whom in his 
admiration of her and her work persisted in 
calling her one of the elect. This led to an 
animated discussion on election. Katie list- 
ened for a while, but lost patience at last, and, 
rising, delivered herself thus: "I am not one 
of the elect, and I don't want to be. I would 
rather be with the poor devils outside than 
with you inside." Having discharged this 
bombshell she flew upstairs to her mother. 
"Oh!" she cried, "what have I done?" When 
she repeated what she had said, her mother. 



A GIRL EVANGELIST 35 

whose laugh was always hearty, screamed with 
delight. Election as commonly taught was 
rank poison to the Mother of the Army. The 
doctrine that God has out of His mere good 
pleasure elected some to eternal life made her 
wild with indignation. When her son Bram- 
well was staying for a time in Scotland, she 
wrote him: "It seems a peculiarity of the 
awful doctrine of Calvinism that it makes those 
who hold it far more interested in and anxious 
about its propagation than about the diminu- 
tion of sin and the salvation of souls. ... It 
may be God will bless your sling and stone to 
deliver His servant out of the paw of this bear 
of hell — Calvinism." 

One naturally asks what became of Cather- 
ine's education all this time. On this subject 
also Mrs. Booth held strong views. When her 
daughter was sixteen she wrote to her: "You 
must not think that we do not rightly value 
education, or that we are indifferent on the 
subject. We have denied ourselves the com- 
mon necessaries of life to give you the best in 
our power, and I think this has proved that 
we put a right value on it. But we put God 



36 THE MARECHALE 

and righteousness first and education second, 
and if I had life to begin over again I should 
be still more particular. ... I would like you to 
learn to put your thoughts together forcibly 
and well, to think logically and clearly, to 
speak powerfully, L e, with good but simple 
language, and to write legibly and well, which 
will have more to do with your usefulness than 
half the useful knowledge you would have to 
spend your time over at College." When the 
principal of a Ladies' College, who had at- 
tended Mrs. Booth's meetings and been blessed, 
offered to receive Catherine and educate her 
gratuitously, Mrs. Booth, after visiting the 
College and breathing the atmosphere of the 
place, declined the tempting offer with thanks. 
Some will, of course, be disposed to question 
the wisdom of the mother's decision. It should 
not be impossible to combine the noblest learn- 
ing with the most fervent faith. Yet every 
discipline must be judged by its fruits. How 
many Catherine Booths have hitherto been pro- 
duced by Newnham and Girton? 

Long after Catherine the second had left 
her home-land, she continued to receive letters 



A GIRL EVANGELIST 37 

from her English converts, and when, after 
many years, she resumed her evangehstic work 
in England, people whom she had never seen 
and never heard of before would come and tell 
her that they had been saved through her mis- 
sion at this or that place. All these testimonies 
were like bells ringing in her soul. One out of 
many may be resounded. Writing to Paris in 
1896, Henry Howard, now the Chief of Staff 
in the Army, said: "I have certainly never 
forgotten your Ilkeston campaign of sixteen 
years ago, when God made your soul a mes- 
senger to my soul. You led me towards an 
open door which I am pleased to remember I 
went in at, and during these many years your 
own share in my Ufe's transformation has 
often been the subject of grateful praise." 



THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 



CHAPTER III 

THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 

After many victories at home, William and 
Catherine Booth began to look abroad. They 
realised that "the field is the world," and they 
longed to commence operations on the Conti- 
nent. In the summer of 1881, with high hopes 
and some natural fears, they dedicated their 
eldest daughter to France. In giving her they 
gave their best. Delicate girl though she was, 
she had become one of the greatest spiritual 
forces in England. She swayed vast multi- 
tudes by something higher than mere elo- 
quence. Wherever she went revivals broke 
out and hundreds were converted. There was 
a pathos and a power in her appeals which 
made them irresistible. 

At the time of her departure she received 
many letters from friends whom she had spir- 
itually helped, and who realised how much they 
would miss her in England. Nowhere had 

41 



42 THE MARECHALE 

she done more good, nowhere could her ab- 
sence create a greater blank, than in her own 
home. Her sister Eva wrote: "I cannot bear 
the thought that you are gone. You have 
always understood me. I hope one day to be 
of some use to you, in return for all you have 
done for me." And her brother Herbert wrote 
her ; "You cannot know how much I felt your 
leaving. The blow came so suddenly. You 
were gone. Only God and myself know how 
much I had lost in you. I can truthfully say 
that you have been everything to me, and if it 
had not been for you I should never have been 
where and what I am spiritually at present. 
God bless you a thousand thousand times. Oh ! 
how I long to be of some little service to you 
after all you have been to me. . . . Thousands 
upon thousands of true, loving hearts are bear- 
ing you up at the Eternal throne, mine among 
them. You have a chance that men of the 
past would have given their blood for, and 
that the very angels in Heaven covet." 

There was no Entente Cordiale in those 
days, and at the thought of parting with Katie, 
and letting her go to live in the slums of Paris, 
Mrs. Booth confessed that she "felt unutter- 



THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 43 

able things." In a letter to a friend she wrote : 
"The papers I read on the state of Society in 
Paris make me shudder, and I see all the dan- 
gers to which our darling will be exposed!" 
But if her fears were great, her faith was 
greater. Asked by Lady Cairns how she dared 
to send a girl so young and unprotected into 
such surroundings, she answered, "Her inno- 
cence is her strength, and Katie knows the 
Lord." And if Katie herself was asked to de- 
fine Christianity, she answered, "Christianity 
is heroism!" For a girl of this spirit, was 
there, after all, anything so formidable in the 
French people? Was there not rather a pre- 
established harmony between her and the pleas- 
ant land of France, as her remarkable predi- 
lection for the French language already 
seemed to indicate? Is any nation in the 
world so chivalrous as the French? any nation 
so sensitive to the charm of manner, the mag- 
netic power of personality? any nation — in 
spite of all its hatred of clericahsm — gifted 
with so infallible a sense of the beauty of true 
holiness? Courage, camarade! 

What were the ideas with which Catherine 
began her work in Paris ? What was her plan 



44. THE MARECHALE 

of campaign? How did she hope to conquer? 
On these points let us listen to herself. "I 
saw," she says, "that the bridge to France 
was — ^making the French people believe in me. 
That is what the Protestants do not under- 
stand. They preach the Bible, they write 
books, they offer tracts. But that does not 
do the work. 'Curse your bibles, your books, 
your tracts!' cry the French. I have seen 
thousands of testaments given away to very 
little purpose. I have seen them torn up to 
light cigars. And the conviction that took 
shape in my mind was that, unless I could in- 
spire faith in me, there was no hope. Only if 
Jesus is lifted up in flesh and blood, will He 
to-day draw all men to Him. If I cannot give 
Him, I shall fail. France has not waited till 
now for religion, for preaching, for eloquence. 
Something more is needed. 'I that speak unto 
thee am He' — there is a sense in which the 
world is waiting for that to-day. You may 
say that this leads to fanaticism, to all sorts 
of error; and yet I always come back to it. 
Christ's primary idea, His means of saving the 
world, is, after all, personality. The face, the 
character, the life of Jesus is to be seen in 



THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 45 

men and women. This is the bridge to the 
seething masses who believe in nothing, who 
hate rehgion, who cry 'Down with Jesus 
Christ!' What sympathy I felt with them as 
I listened to their angry cries against some- 
thing which they had never really seen or 
known. They shout 'Jesuits,' but they have 
never seen Jesus. Could they but see Him, 
they would still 'receive Him gladly.' It is the 
priests' religion that has made them bitter. 
*Money to be baptised ! Money to be married ! 
Money to be buried!' was what I heard them 
mutter. Ah! they are quick to recognise the 
comedian in religion, and equally quick to rec- 
ognise the real thing. France is more sensitive 
to disinterested love than any nation I have 
ever known. France will never accept a re- 
ligion without sacrifice. 

"These were the convictions with which I 
began the work in Paris, and, if I had to begin 
it over again to-day, I would go on the same 
lines. When I knew what I had to do, my 
mind was at rest. I said, 'We will lay our- 
selves out for them; they shall know where 
we live, they can watch us day and night, 
they shall see what we do and judge us.' And 



46 THE MAHECHALE 

the wonderful thing in those first years of our 
work in France and Switzerland was the flame. 
We lighted it all along the line. Wherever we 
went we brought the fire with us, we fanned 
it, we communicated it. We could not help 
doing so, because it was in us, and that was 
what made us sufferers. The fire had to be 
burning in us day and night. That is our 
symbol — the fire, the fire! 

Seigneur, ce que mon occur reclame, 

C'est le Feu . . . 
Le seul secret de la Victoire, 

C'est le Feu. 

We all know what the fire is. It warms and it 
burns ; it scorches the Pharisees and makes the 
cowards fly. But the poor, tempted, unhappy 
world knows by whom it is kindled, and says: 
'I know Thee who Thou art — the Holy One 
of God!' 

"That was what filled the halls at Havre 
and Rouen, Nimes and Bordeaux, Brussels 
and Liege. We personified Some One, and 
that was the attraction. I have not the in- 
sufferable conceit to suppose that it was any- 
thing in me that drew them. What am I? 
Dust and ashes. But if you have the fire, it 



THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 47 

draws, it melts; it consumes all selfishness; it 
makes you love as He loves; it gives you a 
heart of steel to yourself, and the tenderest of 
hearts to others; it gives you eyes to see what 
no one else sees, to hear what others have 
never given themselves the trouble to listen 
to. And men rush to you because you are 
what you are ; you are as He was in the world ; 
you have His sympathy, His Divine love. His 
Divine patience. Therefore He gives you the 
victory over the world; and what is money, 
what are houses, lands, anything, compared 
with that? 

"This was the one attraction. When I went 
to France I said to Christ: 'I in You and 
You in me!' and many a time in confronting 
a laughing, scoffing crowd, single-handed, I 
have said, 'You and I are enough for them. 
I won't fail You, and You won't fail me.' 
That is something of which we have only 
touched the fringe. That is a truth almost 
hermetically sealed. It would be sacrilege, it 
would be desecration, it would be wrong, un- 
fair, unjust if Divine power were given on any 
other terms than absolute self-abandonment. 
When I went to France I said to Jesus, 'I 



48 THE MARECHALE 

will suffer anything if You will give me the 
keys.' And if I am asked what was the secret 
of our power in France, I answer: First, 
love; second, love; third, love. And if you 
ask how to get it, I answer: First, by sacri- 
fice; second, by sacrifice; third, by sacrifice. 
Christ loved us passionately, and loves to be 
loved passionately. He gives Himself to those 
who love Him passionately. And the world 
has yet to see what can be done on these 
lines." 



CHRIST IN PARIS 



CHAPTER IV 

CHRIST IN PARIS 

In the early spring of 1881 Captain Cath- 
erine Booth and her intrepid lieutenants, 
Florence Soper, Adelaide Cox and Elizabeth 
Clark, who enjoyed the privilege of her ex- 
ample and training, began life in Paris. Later 
on they were joined by Ruth Patrick, Lucy 
Johns and others. Soon after they were joined 
by the GteneraFs youngest son, Herbert Booth, 
who is proud of having received his first black 
eye in assisting his sister during those early 
fights, and Arthur Sydney Clibborn, who Hved 
a life of unparalleled devotion and heroism, 
and later became the Marechale's husband. 
Years before Canon Bamett and his band of 
Oxford men were attracted to Whitechapel, 
these fresh young English girls settled in a 
similar quarter of the French capital. What 
quixotic impulses carried them thither? They 
had no social or political ideals to realise. They 

51 



52 THE MARECHALE 

had not been persuaded that altruism is better 
than egoism, that the enthusiasm of humanity 
is nobler than the pursuit of pleasure or the 
love of culture. They were not weary of the 
conventions of society and seeking a new sen- 
sation in slumming. They were not playing 
at soldiers. But they, too, had their dreams 
and visions. They loved Christ, and they 
wished to see Christ victorious in Paris. Com- 
ing into a wilderness of poverty, squalor and 
vice, they dared to believe that they could make 
the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. 
They had the faith which laughs at impossi- 
bihties. 

The first letter Catherine received from her 
father after she set foot in France breathed 
tender affection and ardent hope. "Oh, my 
heart does yearn over you! How could you 
fear for a single moment that you would be 
any less near and dear to me on account of 
your brave going forth to a land of strangers 
to help me in the great purpose and struggle 
of my life? My darling, you are nearer and 
dearer than ever. . . . France is hanging on 
you to an extent fearful to contemplate, and 
you must regard your health, seeing that we 



CHRIST IN PARIS 53 

cannot go on without you. We shall anxi- 
ously await information as to when you make 
a start. Everybody who has heard you and 
knows you feels the fullest confidence in the 
result. Nevertheless I shall be glad for you 
to get to work, seeing that I know you won't 
be easy in your mind until you have seen a 
few French sinners smashed up at the penitent 
form." 

With her own hand Catherine raised the 
flag at Rue d'Angouleme 66, in Belleville. 
Here was a hall for six hundred, situated in a 
court approached by a narrow street. The bulk 
of the audience that gathered there night after 
night were of the artisan class. Some were 
young men of a lower type, and from these 
came what disturbance there was. The French 
sense of humour is keen, and there were many 
lively sallies at the expense of the speakers and 
singers on the platform. Every false accent, 
every wrong idiom, every unexpected utter- 
ance or gesture was received with an outburst 
of laughter. But the mirth was superficial, 
and the expression on the faces of the tired 
men, harassed women, and pale children was 
one of settled melancholy. Catherine instinc- 



54 THE MARECHALE 

tively felt that what they needed was a gospel 
of joy; certainly not the preaching of hell, for 
did they not live in hell? These toiling sisters 
and brothers were the multitudes on whom 
Jesus had compassion. 

Meetings were held night after night, and 
for six months the Capitaine was never absent 
except on Saturdays. Those were days of 
fight, and she fought, to use her own phrase, 
like a tiger. She had to fight first her own 
heart. She knew her capacity, and God had 
done great things through her in England. 
The change from an audience of five thousand 
spellbound hearers in the circus of Leeds to a 
handful of gibing ouvriers in the Belleville 
quarter of Paris was indeed a clashing an- 
tithesis. A fortnight passed without a single 
penitent, and Catherine was all the time so ill 
that it was doubtful if she would be able to 
remain in the field. That fortnight was prob- 
ably one of the supreme trials of her faith. 
The work appeared so hopeless! There was 
nothing to see. But for the Capitaine faith 
meant going on. It meant saying to her heart, 
"You may suffer, you may bleed, you may 
break, but you shall go on." She went on, be- 



CHRIST IN PARIS 55 

lieving, praying, fighting, and at last the tide 
of battle turned. 

The beginning of what proved a memorable 
meeting was more than usually unpromising. 
One of the tormentors, a terrible woman, 
known as "the devil's wife," excelled herself 
that night. She was of immense size, and used 
to stand in the hall with arms akimbo and 
sleeves rolled up above the elbows, and with 
one wink of her eye would set everybody 
screaming and yelling. On this occasion there 
was not a thing that she did not turn to ridi- 
cule. The fun grew fast and furious, and 
some of the audience got up and began to 
dance. The meeting seemed to be lost ; but by 
a master-stroke the leader turned defeat into 
victory. Through the din she cried, "Mes 
amis ! I will give you twenty minutes to dance, 
if you will then give me twenty minutes to 
speak. Are you agreed?" A tall, dark, hand- 
some ouvrier^ in a blue blouse, who had been a 
ringleader in the disturbances, jumped up and 
said, "Citizens, it is only fair play;" and they 
all agreed. So they had their dance, and at 
the end of the appointed time the ouvrier, 
standing with watch in hand, cried, "Time up. 



56 THE MARECHALE 

citizens; it is the Capitaine's turn!" The bar- 
gain was kept. Everybody sat down, and an 
extraordinary silence filled the place. Not for 
twenty, but for an hour and twenty minutes 
the leader had the meeting in the hollow of her 
hand. When the audience filed out, the tall 
ouvrier remained behind, and Catherine went 
down to where he was sitting in the back of the 
hall. With his chiselled face and firm-set 
mouth, he looked like a man who could have 
seen one burned alive without moving a muscle. 

"Thank you," said the Capitaine, "y^^ h^^YQ 
helped me to-night. Have you tmderstood 
what I have been saying?" 

"I believe that you believe what you say." 

"Oh! of course I believe." 

"Well, I was not sure before." With a sigh 
he added, "Have you time to listen?" 

"Yes, certainly." 

It was midnight and they were alone. As 
he began in softest tones to tell the story of 
his inner life, she felt the delicacy of the soul 
that is hidden under the roughest exterior. He 
said, "I had the happiest home in all Paris. I 
married the woman I loved, and after twelve 
months a little boy came to our home. Three 



CHRIST IN PARIS 57 

weeks after, my wife lost her reason, and now 
she is in an asylum. But there was still my 
little boy. He was a beautiful child. We ate 
together, slept together, walked and talked 
together. He was all the world to me. He 
was the first to greet me in the morning, and 
the first to welcome me in the evening when I 
came home from work. This went on till the 
sixth year struck, and then. . . ." His lips 
twitched, and he turned his face away. His 
hearer softly said, "He died." He gave a 
scarcely perceptible nod, and smothered a 
groan. "And then," he continued, "I went to 
the devil. Before the open grave in the Pere 
Lachaise cemetery, with hundreds of my com- 
rades about me, I lifted my hand to heaven and 
cried, 'If there be a God, let Him strike me 
dead!' " 

"But He did not strike you dead?" 

"No." 

"He is very gentle and patient with us all. 
And now you have come here to-night. Does 
it not seem to you a strange thing that you 
out of all the millions of France, and I out of 
all the millions of England should be all alone 
together here at midnight? How do you ac- 



58 THE MARECHALE 

count for it? Isn't it because God thought of 
you, and loves you? . . . Do you ever pray?" 

"I pray? Oh, never! Perhaps I prayed as 
a child, but never now." 

"But I pray," said the Capitaine, and, kneel- 
ing down, she prayed a double prayer, for 
herself as well as for him. She wanted this 
man's salvation for her own sake and the 
work's sake. For weeks she had been fighting 
and praying for a break, and she felt as if on 
the issue of this wrestling for a single soul 
depended the whole future of the work in 
France. While she prayed for his salvation 
from sin she was silently praying for her own 
deliverance from doubt and fear and discom*- 
agement. And both prayers were heard. 
When she opened her eyes, she saw his face 
bathed in tears. She knew that his heart was 
melted, and she spoke to him of the love of 
God. 

"But I have hated Him. I have hated reli- 
gion; I have come here to mock you; I have 
called you Jesuits." 

"Yet God loves you." 

"But why did He allow my wife to lose her 



CHRIST IN PARIS 59 

reason? Why did He take my child if He 
is love?" 

"I cannot answer these questions. You will 
know why one day. But I know He loves 
you." 

"Is it possible that He can forgive a poor 
sinner like me?" 

"It is certain." 

Emile was won. Some nights afterward he 
gave his testimony, and for seven years he 
always stood by the Marechale. He was her 
best helper. When he used to get up to speak, 
there was immediate attention. "Citizens," 
he would say, "you all know me. You have 
heard me many times. This God whom I 
once hated I now love, and I want to speak to 
you about Him." 

After this, conversions became frequent. 
The mercy-seat was rarely empty. One of the 
first French songs of Catherine's composition 
contained the most curious idioms : 

Quand je suis soufFrant, 
Entendez mon cri, etc. 

— Donnez moi Jesus. 

But she sang it with such feeling that it was 
the means of the conversion of a clever young 



60 THE MARECHALE 

governess, who became one of her most de- 
voted officers. 

Then another striking conquest was made. 
One night a rough fellow, partly drunk, ap- 
proached the Capitaine and said a vile word to 
her in the hearing of "the devil's wife," who 
dealt him a blow that sent him reeling across 
the hall crying, "You dare not touch her, she 
is too pure for us!" {Elle est trop pure pour 
nous!) Catherine rushed between them and 
stopped the fight. Thus "la femme du diable" 
was won, and from that time she got two or 
three others to join her in forming Cather- 
ine's bodyguard, who nightly escorted her and 
her comrades through the Rue d'Allemagne, 
which was a haunt of criminals, and saw her 
safe at the door of her flat in the Avenue Par- 
mentier. 

When Baron Cederstrom was seeking local 
colour for his painting "The Marechale in the 
Cafe," ^ he drove down with his wife to a meet- 
ing in the Rue d'Angouleme. As they ap- 

^ This painting is now in the picture gallery of Stock- 
holm. The artist^ as is well known^ afterwards married 
Madame Patti. 



CHRIST IN PARIS 61 

proached the hall, the Baroness caught sight of 
some of the faces and took fright. 

"Go back, go back!" she shouted to the 
coachman. 

The Baron tried in vain to reassure her. 

"Give me my salts!" she cried, feeling as if 
she would faint. "I never saw such faces in 
my life. They are all murderers and brig- 
ands." To Catherine, who came out to wel- 
come her, she exclaimed, "I am sure the good 
God won't send you to Purgatory, for you 
have it here!" 

"You have nothing to fear," was the an- 
swer; "I am here every night." But as the 
Baroness was led up to the front seats, she still 
cast scared looks at the people she passed. 

Some of the politically dangerous classes did 
give trouble for a time. Knives were dis- 
played and some blood was shed. An excited 
sergeant of police declared one night that half 
the cut-throats of Paris were in that hall, and 
by order of the authorities it was closed. Soon, 
however, the meetings were again in full swing, 
and when Catherine's eldest brother Bramwell, 
her comrade in many an English campaign, 
paid her a flying visit three months after she 



62 THE MARECHALE 

left home, he was delighted with all that he 
saw. "The meetings," he wrote, "are held 
every night. The congregations vary from 
150 to 400. . . . On Sunday, at three, I attended 
the testimony meeting, which is only for con- 
verts and friends. About seventy were pres- 
ent. Miss Booth took the centre, and gathered 
round her a little company. I cannot describe 
that meeting. When I heard those French 
converts singing that first hymn, ^Nearer to 
heaven, nearer to heaven,' I wept for joy, and 
during the season of prayer which followed my 
heart overflowed. Here, using another tongue, 
among a strange people, almost alone, this 
little band have trusted the Lord and tri- 
umphed. . . . Then testimonies were invited. 
... I wept and rejoiced, and wept again. I 
glorified God. Had I not heard these seven- 
teen people speak in their own language of 
God's saving power in Paris during those few 
weeks! I require all who read this to rejoice. 
I beHeve they will. Remember how great a 
task it is to awaken the conscience before 
Christ can be offered; to convince of sin as 
well as of righteousness ; to call to repentence 
as well as faith On the following night 300 



CHRIST IN PARIS 63 

were present. . . . Miss Booth stepped off the 
platform as she concluded her address, and 
came down, as so many of us have seen her 
come down at home, into the midst of the peo- 
ple. Her closing appeal seemed to go through 
them. Many were deeply moved. Some of 
those sitting at the back, who had evidently 
come largely for fun, quailed before one's very 
eyes, and seemed subdued and softened. God 
was working." 

Later in the year the new headquarters on 
the Quai de Valmy were opened. Here there 
was a hall for 1200. No other form of religion 
could draw such an assembly of the lowest class 
of Parisians as nightly met in it. The men 
came in their blouses, kept their caps on their 
heads, and — except that they abstained from 
smoking, in obedience to a notice at the door — 
behaved with the freedom and ease of a music- 
hall audience. But the earnest way in which 
most of those present joined in the hymns 
proved that they were not mere spectators, and 
it was astonishing that many rough, unkempt, 
and even brutal-looking men soon learned to 
sing heartily without using the book. 

There were a hundred converts in the first 



64 THE MARECHALE 

year and another five hundred in the second. 
Par,NS herself began to testify that a good work 
had been begun in her midst. On the way to 
and from the hall in the Rue d'Angouleme 
Catherine, who by this time had begun to be 
endearingly known as the Marechale, the high- 
est military title in France, used often to meet 
a priest, to whom she always said "Bon jour, 
mon pere." One day he paused and said, 
"Madame la Marechale, I want to tell you that 
since you began your work in this quarter the 
moral atmosphere of the whole place has 
changed. I meet the fruits everywhere, and I 
can tell better than you what you are doing." 
She felt that God sent her that word of en- 
couragement. 

One of her letters of this time indicates 
what kind of impression her work was making. 
"There is a man," she wrote, "who has at- 
tended our meetings most regularly. He lis- 
tens with breathless attention, and sometimes 
the tears flow down his cheeks. He was visited, 
and sent me 70 francs for our work, with a 
message that he desired to see me. I saw him, 
and he gave me 80 more, with the words 
'Sauvez la jeunesse'! ('Save the young!') I 



CHRIST IN PARIS 65 

found him very dark and hopeless about him- 
self/ . . . The next week he again called me 
aside in the hall, put 50 francs into my hand, 
sajdng he hoped soon we should have a hall in 
every quarter of Paris. 'Save the young peo- 
ple !' he again said. I said 'Yes, but I want to 
see you saved.' 'That will come,' he said, and 
left the hall. Last Sunday afternoon, I no- 
ticed him weeping in a corner of the hall, as 
our young people were witnessing for Jesus, 
and, after the services, he asked if he might 
speak to me for two minutes; this time he 
handed me 60 francs, telHng me to go on pray- 
ing for him. He has lived a bad life and is 
troubled with the thought of the past." 

It began to be commonly beheved that the 
Marechale could work certain kinds of mir- 
acles. A woman who had attended the meet- 
ings, and been blessed in her soul, became con- 
vinced that the English lady had power to cast 
out devils, and one day she brought a neigh- 
bour to the physician of souls, introducing her 
with the remark, "She has not only one but 
seven devils." The new-comer had a frightful 
face. She was so drunken, immoral and violent 
that nobody could live with her. Yet she, too, 



66 THE MARECHALE 

had a soul. The Marechale made her get down 
on her knees, put both her hands on her head, 
and prayed that the devils might all be cast 
out. "She's now another woman," was the 
testimony soon after borne by all her neigh- 
bours. 

One of the surest indications of the success 
of the work in Paris is found in the fact that, 
before the end of the first year there was a 
general demand for a newspaper correspond- 
ing in some degree to the English War Cry, 
That was a memorable day on which the Mare- 
chale and her officers sat in their Avenue Par- 
mentier flat, hke a coterie of Fleet Street 
journalists, gravely discussing their new ven- 
ture. It was indicative of the holy simplicity 
of the editor-in-chief that she thought at first 
of changing The War Cry into Amour, She 
did not realise the sensation which the cry 
''Amour, un sour would have created in the 
Boulevards. Her proposal was overruled, but 
her second suggestion, to call the paper En 
Avant, was received with acclamation. This 
was a real inspiration. The paper duly ap- 
peared in the beginning of 1882, and has gone 
on successfully ever since. The shouting of 



CHRIST IN PARIS 67 

its name in the streets set all the world and his 
wife a-thinking and a-talking. What if the 
Man of Nazareth is after all far ahead of our 
modern philosophers and statesmen, and if this 
handful of English girls is come to lead us all 
forward to true liberty, equality and frater- 
nity? 

The reports of the work in France were 
received with feelings of gratitude at home. 
To "My dear Kittens" — a family pet-name — 
her brother Bramwell wrote: "We are more 
than satisfied with your progress. The Gen- 
eral says that so far as he can judge your rate 
of advance in making people is greater than 
his own was at the beginning. I am sure you 
ought to feel only the liveliest confidence and 
greatest encouragement all the time." And to 
"My darling Bliicher" the General himself 
wrote, "I appreciate and admire and daily 
thank God for your courage and love and 
endurance. God will and must bless you. We 
pray for you. I feel I live over again in you. 
We all send you our heartiest greetings and 
our most tender affection. Look up. Don't 
forget my sympathy. Don't trouble to an- 
swer my scrawls. I never like to see your 



68 THE MARECHALE 

handwriting because I know it means your 
poor back. Remember me to all your com- 
rades." 

"I feel I live over again in you." The 
thought was evidently habitual in the Gen- 
eral's mind. "He bids me tell you," wrote 
Enmia, "that you are his second self." The 
resemblance was physical as well as spiritual. 
With her tall figure, her chiselled face, her 
aquiline nose, her penetrating blue eyes, Cath- 
erine became, as time went on, more and more 
strikingly like her father. One of her sons, 
who saw her stooping over the General the day 
before he died, said that the two pallid faces 
were like facsimiles in marble. 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 



CHAPTER V 

FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 

In the autumn of 1883 the Mareehale sud- 
denly leapt into fame as a latter-day Portia, 
brilliantly and successfully pleading in a Swiss 
law-court, before the eyes of Europe, the 
sacred cause of civil and religious liberty. The 
land of Tell, the oldest of modern republics, 
has always been regarded as a shrine of free- 
dom. It has shown itself hospitable to all 
kinds of ideas, even the newest, the strangest, 
the most anti- Christian, the most anti-social. 
There is a natural affinity between free Eng- 
land and free Switzerland. 

**Two Voices are there ; one is of the sea, 
One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice: 
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice; 
They were thy chosen music, Liberty." 

In the "Treaty of Friendship" between 
Great Britain and Switzerland, drawn up in 

71 



72 THE MARECHALE 

1855, it was agreed that "the subjects and 
citizens of either of the two contracting parties 
shall, provided they conform to the laws of the 
country, be at liberty, with their families, to 
enter, establish themselves, reside and remain 
in any part of the territories of the other." 
Yet the presence of a few English evangelists 
in Switzerland evoked a storm of persecution 
in which the first principles of religious liberty 
were as much violated as ever they had been 
in the days of the Huguenots. 

When the Marechale and some comrades 
accepted an urgent invitation to Switzerland, 
she Kttle thought that she would be the 
heroine of an historical trial. She went to 
preach the gospel. She observed the laws of 
the land, and respected the religious suscepti- 
bilities of its people. When she entered Ge- 
neva, she published only one poster, and that 
after it had been duly vise; she allowed no 
processions, banners or brass bands in the 
streets. Her only crime was that she sought 
to gain the ears of those who never entered a 
place of worship, and that she marvellously 
succeeded. 

If good order was not always maintained 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 73 

at her meetings, it was not her fault, but that 
of the authorities who refused to do their duty. 
History repeats itself. As in ancient Thessa- 
lonica during the visit of St. Paul, so in mod- 
ern Geneva, some citizens, "moved with jeal- 
ousy, took unto themselves certain vile fellows 
of the rabble, and gathering a crowd set the 
city on an uproar." The ringleaders of the 
disturbance were paid by noted traffickers in 
vice, who were themselves often seen in the 
meetings inciting the audience to riot. One 
of the first converts, a student, confessed that 
he had got twenty francs a night, and as much 
whisky as he could drink, to make a row. 

The Department of Justice and Police 
chanced at that time to have as its president 
a Councillor of State, M. Heridier, who 
thought it right not to punish the offenders 
but to banish their victims. In a sitting of the 
Grand Council he said, "We have been peti- 
tioned to call out a company of gendarmerie 
to protect these foreigners, and to prevent 
brawls and rows. I will not consent to take 
such a step. There are already eight police 
agents in these places every evening who have 
a very hard time of it. . . . These agents might 



74 THE MARECHALE 

be doing more useful work elsewhere, and I 
am just about to withdraw them." That meant 
handing over the strangers to the tender 
mercies of the mob. It was a gross breach of 
the laws of hospitality and chivalry as well as 
of the constitution of a free country. The 
city of Calvin did not know the day of its visi- 
tation. 

The Marechale and her comrades began their 
meetings in the Casino on December 22, 1882. 
The hall was crowded, and soon there was rag- 
ing a great battle between the powers of light 
and darkness. A disturbance had evidently 
been organised. A band of students in col- 
oured caps, who had come early and taken 
possession of the front of the galleries and 
other prominent positions, were on their worst 
behaviour. The first hymn was interrupted by 
cries and ribald songs, and the prayer which 
followed was almost drowned. But the Mare- 
chale was never more calm and confident than 
when facing such music. At every slight lull 
in the storm, she uttered, in clear, penetrating 
tones, some pointed words which pierced many 
a heart. Within an hour she not only had sub- 
dued her audience but was inviting those who 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 75 

desired salvation to come forward to the peni- 
tent form. Scoffers of half an hour ago left 
their places, trembling under the sense of guilt, 
and as they knelt down the Marechale sang, in 
soft notes, the hymn: 

Reviens^ reviens^ pauvre pecheur. 

Ton Pere encore t' attend; 
Veux-tu languir loin du bonheur, 

Et pecher plus longtemps? 

O ! reviens a ton Sauveur, 

Reviens ce soir, 
II veut te recevoir^ 

Reviens a ton Sauveur! 



A strange influence stole over the meeting, 
hushing the crowd into profound silence, and 
the Spirit did His work in many hearts. 

The Marechale conducted a similar service 
the following night, and on Christmas Eve she 
faced an audience of 3000 in the Salle de la 
Reformation. Its composition was entirely to 
her mind, for she was never so inspired with 
divine pity and power as when she was con- 
fronting the worst elements of a town. The 
theatres, the cabarets, the dancing saloons. 



76 THE MARECHALE 

the drinking dens, and the rendezvous of pros- 
titution had poured their contents into the hall. 
Socialists who had found refuge in Geneva — 
men of many nationalities — came en masse. A 
large part of the audience were so entirely 
strangers to the idea of worship or of a Divine 
Being, that the sound of prayer called forth 
loud derisive laughter, with questions and cries 
of surprise and scorn. 

But the soldiers of Christ, clad in armour of 
light, were more than a match for the powers 
of darkness. Many a winged word found its 
mark, and the after-meeting in the smaller 
hall, into which three hundred were crowded, 
was pervaded by a death-like stillness, in which 
many sought and found salvation. Some of 
the ringleaders of the disturbance had pushed 
their way into this room; but they remained 
perfectly quiet, evidently subdued and over- 
awed, with an expression on their faces of 
intense interest, which showed that they felt 
they were in presence of a reality in religion 
which they had not before encountered. The 
Marechale sang her own hymn " Je viens a Toi, 
dans ma misere," and many joined in the 
chorus: 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 77 

Ote tous mes peches ! 

Agneau de Dieu, je viens a Toi, 

Ote tous mes peches. 

One of those who were melted by the words 
wrote: "I was like the demoniac of Gadara. 
I may say I was possessed; I was chained for 
fifteen years to a frightful life. ... It was 
then that you came. I was at first astonished ; 
then remorse seized me. Then followed a 
frightful torment in my soul — a real hell. I 
resolved to put an end to it one way or another. 
Yet I thought I would go and hear you once 
more. I had been in darkness and anguish 
since the day of the first meeting. No word 
had I been able to recall of that day's teaching, 
except the words of the sacred song *Ote tous 
mes peches' (Take all my sins away). These 
sounded in my heart and brain through the 
day and the sleepless night — these and these 
only. Bowed down with grief and despair, 
again I came to the Reformation Hall, and 
to the after-meeting. The first sounds which 
fell on my ear were again those very words, 
*Ote tous mes peches,' and then you spoke 
on the words, 'Though your sins be as scarlet, 
they shall be white as snow'; you seemed to 



78 THE MARECHALE 

speak to me alone, to regard me alone — and 
I felt it was God who had sent me there to 
hear those words." 

Hundreds of such letters were written. Evi- 
dence came from all sides of blessing received 
in many homes, of wild sons reclaimed, of 
drunkards and vicious men transformed by 
the power of God, of light and joy brought 
into families over which a cloud had hung. 
Not only anarchists and prodigals, but students 
of theology and the children of pastors had 
their lives transformed. In a meeting for 
women only, at which 3000 were present, the 
daughter of Pastor Napoleon Roussel began 
the new life. Her brother had been one of the 
converts in the first meeting in the Reforma- 
tion Hall. Mile. Roussel was to be the Mare- 
chale's secretary for five years, and accompany 
her in a great American tour. A divinity stu- 
dent who attended a "night with Jesus" on 
New Year's Eve, wrote: "I passed a long 
night of watch, which I shall never forget. 
Since then I am ever happy, and can say 
'Glory to God' every hour of the day." 

But as the tide of Divine blessing rose, the 
tide of human hatred also rose, and in the 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 79 

beginning of February the "exercises" of the 
Army were by Cantonal decree forbidden. A 
week later, the Marechale, with a young com- 
panion, Miss Maud Charlesworth, now Mrs. 
G^n. Ballington Booth, was expelled from the 
Canton of Geneva. During her six weeks in 
the city she had been used to bring about 
probably the greatest revival which it had wit- 
nessed since the days of the Reformers. 

One of the most eminent lawyers of Geneva, 
Edmond Pictet, who had himself been greatly 
blessed during those stirring weeks, helped her 
to draw up an Appeal (Eecours) to the Grand 
Council. He found, however, that she needed 
but little help, and often remarked that with 
the warm heart of an evangehst she combined 
the lucid intelligence of an advocate. When 
the Council of State had deputed two or three 
of its members to hear her on the subject of 
her Appeal, she came back to Geneva under 
a safe-conduct to meet them. In the course 
of the interview, at which the British Consul 
in the city was present, the leading Councillor 
said, "You are a young woman; it is not in ac- 
cordance with our ideas and customs that 
young women should appear in public. We 



80 THE MARECHALE 

are scandalised (froisses) by it." The rejoin- 
der which he received was so remarkable a de- 
fence of "the Prophesying of Women" that 
we give it in full. 

"Listen to me, I beg of you, sir. It is con- 
trary, you tell me, to your sense of what is 
right and becoming that young women should 
preach the Gospel. Now, if Miss Charles- 
worth and I had come to Geneva to act in one 
of your theatres, I have no doubt we should 
have met with sympathy and approval from 
your pubHc. We could have sung and danced 
on your stage ; we could have dressed in a man- 
ner very different from, and much less modest 
than, that in which you see us dressed; we 
could have appeared before a miscellaneous 
audience, men and women, young and old, and 
of every class ; members of the Grand Council, 
M. Herdier himself and others, would have 
come to see us act; we should have got money; 
Geneva would have paid ungrudgingly in that 
case; and you would all have sat and approved; 
you would have clapped your hands and 
cheered us ; you would have brought your wives 
and daughters to see us, and they also would 
have applauded. There would have been noth- 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 81 

ing to froisser you, no immorality in all that, 
according to your ideas and customs. The 
noise (bruit) we should have thus made would 
not have caused our expulsion. But when 
women come to try and save some of the forty 
or fifty thousand of your miserable, scoffing, 
irreligious population who never enter any 
place of worship, when they come with hearts 
full of pity and love for the ignorant and sin- 
ful, and stand up to tell the glad tidings of 
salvation to these rebels, this mob, among 
whom many accept the tidings with eager joy 
— then you cry out that this is unseemly and 
immodest. You would not bring your wives 
and daughters to hear us speak of Jesus, 
though you would bring them to hear us if we 
danced and sang upon the stage of your thea- 
tre. Now you have expelled us ; but still there 
are those multitudes in Geneva who are dark, 
lost, unsaved; and you know it. There they 
are; they exist. What will you do with them? 
Say — what will you do? Are they not a dan- 
ger? Does not their lost condition cry out 
against you?" 

The Councillor was not only silenced, but 
sank into his chair in a state of temporary col- 



82 THE MARECHALE 

lapse. For the moment, at least, the reality 
of the picture presented to him had touched 
his heart. 

Nevertheless the MarechaFs Appeal was re- 
jected, and M. Pictet wrote to her: "The 
wretched storm of anger and prejudice which 
you witnessed and which your friends deplore 
so much, has not blown over by any means. I, 
for one, despair of ever seeing my fellow-citi- 
zens properly understand what religious lib- 
erty and respect of other people's opinion 
mean, — ^therefore the only course left to the 
Army seems to be the one indicated in St. Mat- 
thew X. 23! You have done your duty, you 
cannot be expected to do more than Paul and 
Barnabas did (Acts xiii. 51)." 

Meantime the enemies of righteousness re- 
joiced. The theatrical paper of Geneva com- 
plimented the authorities upon the expulsion. 
"Our theatre," it said, "has lost a formidable 
rival, and the crowd is beginning to find its 
way back to us." 

At that critical time it was not only the civil 
but the spiritual leaders who were weighed and 
found wanting. Injustice could scarcely have 
been pushed so far had not the Churches sane- 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 83 

tioned it by their attitude of silence or open 
hostility. Many religious people took the side 
of the persecuting government and the godless 
populace. The bitterest pamphlet against the 
Armee du Salut was written by Madame la 
Comtesse de Gasparin, whom the delighted 
mob hailed as "a Christian if ever there was 
one," But the most strange and humihating 
fact of all was that the Swiss branch of the 
Evangelical Alliance resolved, after due de- 
liberation, to refrain from uttering a single 
word in defence of religious liberty. No won- 
der that a number of its most influential mem- 
bers sorrowfully withdrew from its fellow- 
ship. 

Banished from Geneva, the Evangelists 
found refuge for a time in Neuchatel. Com- 
ing on the scene just after the authorities had 
forbidden evening meetings, the Marechal 
gave notice of a morning one to be held the 
next day. The hall was filled, and the meet- 
ings went on every morning and afternoon, all 
through the week. 

At six o'clock on Sunday morning the roar- 
ing of a crowd of roughs coming up the street 
reached the ears of those who had already gath- 



84 THE MARECHALE 

ered inside the hall. While the noise grew 
louder and louder, the Marechale said to her 
officers, "Wait here and pray; I will go and 
meet them." On stepping outside the door, 
she was at once surrounded by rough fellows in 
their shirt sleeves, armed with sticks and forks 
and stones, who began to demand what she 
wanted in their town, and poured upon her the 
senseless accusations of the tap-rooms. 

*'Go away!" cried one, "weVe got our pas- 
tors." 

"My friend," was the reply, "you don't do 
them much credit." 

"Here is my god!" (Voild mon dieul), said 
another, pulling out his pipe and brandishing 
it in the Marechale's face. 

"You will need another when you come to 
die." 

"You want our money!" shouted a third. 

"What do you say? You say that again! 
Say it! You dare not, you do not believe it, 
you know that it is a lie." And taking this 
man by the shirt collar, the Marechale led him 
into the hall and up to the front seat, where he 
sat listening most attentively for two hours. 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 85 

Two rows of penitents sought pardon at the 
close of the meeting. 

In June the Grand Council of Neuchatel 
voted for the suppression of the Armee du 
Salute and Zurich and Canton du Vaud soon 
followed suit. It then became clear that the 
only hope of getting these unconstitutional de- 
crees rescinded lay in disobeying them. Jurists 
who were consulted held that this was the best 
way to compel the authorities to retrace their 
steps. Many Swiss converts were ready to 
suffer for conscience' sake, but the Marechale 
resolved that she would herself, as a subject 
of Queen Victoria, assert her right to worship 
God on Swiss soil. In a new form she would 
raise the Apostle's question, "Is it lawful for 
you to scourge a man that is a Roman and un- 
condemned?" The interest of the situation was 
heightened by the fact that it was now a 
woman's question. All the spirit of the modern 
world was in the Marechale's bold declaration, 
"I am a British citizen." 

After working for some months in the south 
of France, she returned to Neuchatel and de- 
liberately infringed the Cantonal decree. On 
the afternoon of Sunday, September 9, she 



86 THE MARECHALE 

conducted a meeting at Prise-Imer, in the Jura 
forest, some five miles above the lake. In a let- 
ter to England she described the scene. "It 
was a day never to be forgotten. Long before 
the hour the people met, and we had upwards 
of 500 who had come out of Neuchatel to praise 
God. The weather was beautiful. After so 
much trouble, fatigue and a long journey, we 
could meet to talk of the things of God. 
Hearts and voices rose together, and it cheered 
me much to look into the faces of our brave 
soldiers. There was no mistaking their zeal 
and determination to go forward." 

While the hymn "Come, Thou burning 
Spirit, come" was being sung under the tall 
pine trees, a sentinel who had been stationed 
on the outskirts of the forest announced that 
the Prefect in his carriage, attended by sixteen 
policemen, was approaching. The Marechale 
gave the news to the audience, and called on 
everybody to be calm and confident. 

"Take no notice. We shall have a glorious 
meeting all the same." 

The gendarmes found the congregation 
kneeling, and formed a ring round it, the Pre- 
fect himself taking his stand close to the 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 87 

Marechale. He and his followers were all 
overawed. For over two hours they listened 
as men spellbound. They heard the Marechale 
pray for the Government, for the nation of 
Switzerland, for themselves. They heard her 
speak of the end and aim of the Armee du 
Salut — "to save the lost, to make all thieves, 
drunkards, outcasts, and plagues of society 
peaceful and loyal citizens, through the power 
of Jesus to lead the nations to God." Then 
they heard the testimonies of converted crim- 
inals, one of whom told of his three years' im- 
prisonment. Pointing to a plain-clothes de- 
tective, he said, "That policeman over there 
knows me; he took me to jail; but now I am a 
changed man." No wonder that the Prefect 
of Pohce was profoundly impressed. At the 
end of the service, he took out his warrant with 
trembling hands, and stanmaered — 

"I have here ... I ought . . ." 

"Yes, I know. You have a decree for my 
arrest. Why didn't you give it me before?" 

"Well, I could not." 

"Yes, a higher Power than man was here 
to restrain you." 

He could not withhold his tribute of admira- 



88 THE MARECHALE 

tion. "This is a magnificent work, if it does 
but last. You do nothing but good. I be- 
seech you not to hold me responsible for this 
act. I, Mke others, had judged you without 
seeing or hearing you." 

He had, however, to obey his orders. The 
Marechale and Captain Becquet, one of her 
officers, were put under arrest. As they were 
leaving that pleasant place, she exclaimed, 
"How strange that we are not to be allowed 
to worship God in these beautiful woods! 
What a pity to see them standing silent and 
unused!" To some of those who heard her 
voice that Sunday evening, the spot was for 
ever holy ground. In the audience was a 
young Switzer, Constant Jeanmonod, one of 
nature's gentlemen, who found salvation on 
that day, gave himself body and soul to God, 
and afterwards became one of the Marechale's 
most devoted friends and comrades in many a 
hard campaign. He is now at the head of the 
work in Belgium. 

The Marechale and Captain Becquet were 
brought down to Neuchatel and conducted to 
the house of M. Comtesse, President of the 
Council of State, who said to them, "You are 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 89 

my prisoners, and it is my duty to have you 
locked up this night." The Marechale, how- 
ever, had just received a telegram begging her 
to attend the funeral of a brave young Geneva 
convert, who had breathed a dying request that 
she should speak at his grave-side. She asked 
permission to fulfil this sacred duty, and was 
liberated on bail of 6000 francs. 

Next morning a service was held in the 
garden of the farmhouse near Geneva where 
Charles Wyssa had died, and there the Mare- 
chale found a lifelong friend. Mrs. Josephine 
Butler was present, and gave a brief address 
which lived long in the memory of those who 
heard it. Having spoken of her profound 
sympathy with the work of the Armee du Salut 
in Switzerland, she made a moving reference 
to the fact that she had lost her only and dearly- 
loved daughter, whom she had named Evange- 
line in the hope that her life would be dedicated 
to evangelisation. One fatal evening, when 
the mother returned home after a long jour- 
ney, her little daughter came running down- 
stairs to meet and welcome her. In her ex- 
treme eagerness to see her mother again, the 
child forgot all danger, slipped over the stair- 



90 THE MARECHALE 

case balustrade, and was taken up crushed and 
unconscious. In less than an hour her gentle 
spirit had fled. 

"At the coffin of that child," said Mrs. But- 
ler, "I consecrated my life to the relief of my 
suffering and oppressed brothers and sisters. 
My great desire was that she should become a 
preacher of the Word of God. And now," 
added the mother, throwing her arms round the 
Marechale, "by another new coffin I have found 
my long-lost daughter, an Evangelist chosen 
and blessed of God." When the Marechale 
had daughters of her own, she called the eldest 
Catherine Evangeline and the youngest Jo- 
sephine. 

From that garden the company moved to 
the churchyard, where the Marechale spoke on 
the beautiful words, "Who are these which are 
arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?" 
Just as John Wyssa, the younger brother of 
Charles, was throwing a handful of earth on 
the coffin, and murmuring the words "Au re- 
voir, mon freref' the Mayor of the Commune 
approached in order to arrest Miss Booth. At 
this juncture Col. Clibborn interposed, saying, 
"Sir! this is a funeral." He was a coarse, bru- 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 91 

tal fellow, very different from the Prefect of 
Police in Neuchatel. The mayor not heeding 
was putting his hand upon Miss Booth's arm, 
when she turned upon him with flashing eyes, 
and said, "Hands off! this is holy ground! 
Don't you see that we are in the presence of 
the dead? I finish this service, and then will 
speak with you." 

When the funeral rites were ended, the 
Mayor thought his turn was at last come. He 
was about to proceed with the arrest, when the 
Marechale still objected. 

"You can't arrest me!" 

The Mayor stared in bewilderment. 

"I say you can't arrest me!" 

"May I ask why?" 

"Because with the best will in the world I 
can't go to two prisons in two Cantons at the 
same time. I am due in Neuchatel." 

The Mayor saw that she was right, and re- 
tired crestfallen. 

The Marechale returned to Neuchatel and 
surrendered to her bail. The iron gates of the 
grim jail closed upon her. The imprisonment 
was shared by her faithful lieutenant, Kate 
Patrick, who refused to leave her. 



92 THE MARECHALE 

It was twelve days before the trial canie on. 
The Marechale was in delicate health, and fre- 
quently became sick. The hunger-striking and 
forcible feeding of these latter days would 
soon have killed her. She tried to eat, but had 
little appetite, and what little she had was de- 
stroyed by the garlic in the food. Mice dis- 
turbed her nights and in the early morning the 
odours which came from the passages were in- 
supportable. The only way in which she could 
get any relief was by putting her face between 
the iron bars of the window and breathing the 
air which came up from the lake. She was 
always thankful that her face was thin and 
just went through the cold bars. 

One morning at five or six o'clock she was 
awakened by happy voices singing dear fa- 
miliar choruses outside the prison walls. She 
was very ill, but she dragged herself from her 
hard bed to the window, waved her hand, and 
cried "Amen!" Then she attached her hand- 
kerchief to a bar, and let it flutter like a flag. 
The signal was received with shouts of "Amen, 
Marechale — ^be of good cheer — hold on — ^hal- 
lelujah!" 

As the time passed, she was thrown in upon 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 93 

herself, and went through a great soul-strug- 
gle. She had lately been the victim of a sting- 
ing article, grossly ignorant and cruelly un- 
just, which had appeared in a religious paper, 
written, rumour said, by the wife of a Swiss 
pastor. It had accused her of unwomanliness, 
immodesty, and vanity. She made the painful 
discovery that she could not yet say, "None of 
these things move me." The poisoned arrows 
had gone deep, forcing tears from her eyes and 
attacking her peace of mind. Chancing to 
notice a little slate hanging on the waU of her 
cell, she took it down and began to write on it 
all the accusations which her enemies might 
bring against her, asking herself as she did so, 
"Could you write your name and say you ac- 
cept that, and that?" Her conscience com- 
pelled her to answer "No, there are some things 
which I could not endure." She was appalled 
as she thought of more and greater trials which 
God might ask her to undergo. He might de- 
prive her of health. He might send her to 
Japan. He might take away her reputation 
and make it impossible for her to defend her- 
self. Could she bear such things? No, she 
could not yet sign her name under the terrible 



94 THE MARECHALE' 

words she wrote. With sorrow she put the 
slate back in its place, and for two days it 
hung against the wall with its list of cruel 
things which she could not accept. But during 
those days she pondered and prayed. She re- 
buked her doubts and fears. How could she 
ever distrust her Lord, who had led her with 
such infinite tenderness? How imagine that 
He would ever lay upon her more than He 
would give her power to bear? She soon crept 
up close to His arms, and realised that nothing 
was really unbearable except doubt. Taking 
her slate down, she read over again all that 
she might be called upon to suffer, and signed 
"Catherine Booth." Then the Angels of God 
filled the prison cell; the peace and joy of 
heaven flooded her soul; and from that hour 
her communion with her Lord was so sweet 
that she kissed the walls of her dungeon before 
she was led forth to her trial. 

On that day (September 19) she wrote her 
exquisite prison song, "Best beloved of my 
soul," and sent it to her father. It was sung, 
while she was still in prison, at a great meeting 
for prayer, in Exeter Hall, at which Mrs. But- 
ler spoke. It was first written in French, the 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 95 

language in which she now habitually thought, 
and translated by herself into English. The 
latter is well-known, and many readers will be 
glad to have the French. 

O Toi que mon ame adore, 
Je ne suis pas seule ici. 
Car je T'y retrouve encore, 
Et je suis au ciel ainsi. 

Ma vie est a Ton service, 
Je T'appartiens sans retour; 
Corps et ame en sacrifice, 
Je Te suivrai nuit et jour. 

Combattons dans la souffrance, 
Et les yeux baignes de pleurs; 
Bien pres est la delivrance. 
Void rHomme de douleurs ! 

Sa voix chasse ma tristesse, 
Mon chagrin s'est dissipe; 
Je chante avec allegresse, 
Mon cachot est trans forme! 

Au milieu de la tempete 
Rien ne peut troubler ma paix; 
Son amour que rien n'arrete 
Peut me garder a jamais. 

Le combat est dur, terrible, 
L'enfer rugit contre nous; 
Mais TArmee est invincible: 
Avcc Dicu nous vaincrons tout. 



96 THE MARECHALE 

During the twelve days of her imprison- 
ment the Mareehale received many letters of 
sjmapathy and good cheer from Swiss friends, 
whose words proved to her how deep and real 
had been the work of the Armee du Salut in 
the country. One of the most interesting was 
signed by seventy-two mothers, who bore glad 
testimony to the conversion of their sons and 
daughters, and two more were signed by a 
number of wives praising God for the conver- 
sion of their husbands. 

More intimate letters came to Catherine 
from home, all breathing warm love, tender 
solicitude, and ardent hope that good would 
come out of evil. "I quite see with you," 
wrote her mother, "as to God's hand being in 
all this, and it appears that when communities 
or nations get sodden in sin and darkness, there 
is no way of arousing them but by such a flash- 
ing of the truth in their midst as will provoke 
persecution. God wants the attention of the 
people, and this is the best way to secure it, 
no doubt. . . . Perhaps you are right about 
pleading your own cause, only you should have 
some one at your elbow who knows the law. 
You will not be up on points of law, I fear, 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 97 

otherwise I have no doubt that God will give 
you what you should say. I feel it a great 
thing to have a child in prison for Jesus' sake ; 
there could be only one greater, namely to be 
there myself; but one would hardly have 
thought it possible in this age. How true that 
the devil hates real saints as much as ever he 
did, and that the spirit of persecution only 
needs the real presence of the Spirit of God 
to call it forth. . . . That the Lord comfort 
and keep you and reveal Himself to you more 
and more and make you a mother of nations, 
prays your loving and sympathising mother. 

"Catherine Booth." 
The next letter admirably reveals both the 
father's and the General's heart. With the 
deepest concern for his beloved daughter there 
is combined a lively sense of the fact that his 
enemies are overreaching themselves and doing 
him and his cause the greatest possible service. 
He wrote: "My darling, no one can tell the 
anxieties we have all gone through concerning 
you during this week. . . . We were awak- 
ened by telegraph messenger with a wire from 
Geneva to say 'Bliicher detained till trial. Pat- 
rick with her — cared for.' The last sentence 



98 THE MARECHALE 

fills us with relief. We interpret it to mean 
Patrick is with you as your secretary or maid, 
and you have all your wants supplied and no 
hardships, . . . Enclosed is this morning's 
Times. All the papers have notices of it, so 
that it is flying all over the world. If you do 
not suffer in your health, I don't care. It will 
all work for good. But your health is of more 
importance to me in my estimation than all 
Switzerland. If you can only get assurance 
of this! I am all uncertain whether this will 
reach you. There will be a storm directly and 
no mistake if these Swiss go on at this rate. 
We all send you all our heart's love and heaps 
of prayers and sympathy. God bless and keep 
you! Remember me to Lieut. Patrick. 
"Your affectionate father, 

"WiUiam Booth." 
Mrs. Bramwell Booth, who as Miss Florence 
Soper had been one of the Marechale's first 
comrades in Paris, wrote her: "I feel as if 
you had mounted away to a land where I can 
call you 'Katie' no more. But I will say, and 
I do say in my heart of innermost hearts, my 
Saint Catherine, counted worthy to suff^er. 
... If only I could beseech you to remember 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 99 

that your health is everything. This is the 
dawning of a glorious morning in your work 
— the forerunner of a glorious victory. Will 
you send some word through Patrick of the 
whole truth — just let me know — just your Flo 
— if it is as bad as a prison cell, and is it do- 
ing your body the least bit of harm? ... I 
wish you could know, in your solitude, how 
we all love you — I wish the breezes over the 
lake could bring you some whispers of what 
we have said of you. The glorious God is 
our God for ever and ever, and His chariots 
of fire are with you — His invisible army is 
around you. Your own Flo. 20. 9. '83." 

Her sister Emma, who was now at the head 
of the Training School at the Congress Hall, 
wrote : "What can be said at such times com- 
pared with what is felt? I will not attempt 
to write. I am praying. All hearts here hold 
you up ceaselessly — ^your example is before 
us ! In the night and the day I am with you — 
in your sorrow I find your joy in what is to 
come out of all. *They know not what they 
do,' and out of their very efforts to hinder 
and stop God's work shall it spread beyond 
restraint. The loss is great, my precious sis- 



100 THE MARECHALE 

ter, but the reward will be infinitely greater, 
and in both you will have been allowed to 
share. It would have been easier to be with 
you, but I'll fight harder than ever in my cor- 
ner here. Filled with deepest sympathy and 
yearning desire for His kingdom to come in 
Switzerland! Devotedly, Emma. PS. It 
is your back I most tremble for — your poor 
back! I wonder if you have pillows. Bless 
your dear little Pattie [Miss Patrick]. Oh, 
each moment I am with you! Jesus is — He 
does love and choose and will honour you!" 

Among those who wrote to the prisoner was 
George Railton,^ whom she regarded almost as 
an elder brother. He had lived with the family 
during her childhood, and when she was a girl 
of twelve and onwards she used to get up at 
six in the morning — slipping downstairs on her 
bare feet in order not to awaken mother — to 
have a Bible lesson with him. She always re- 
garded the talks in those morning hours as 
among the great formative influences in her 
life. Railton, who became the General's first 

^ Since these pages were written, this remarkable man 
has died — as he wished — with his armour on^ and been 
''promoted to glory.'* 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 101 

commissioner, watched her career with pro- 
found and affectionate interest. He wrote on 
September 25 : "Dear Marechale Prisoner, I 
have just come from that tremendous prayer 
meeting [in Exeter Hall, held as a protest 
against her imprisonment], one of the biggest 
and best this world has ever seen. . . . The 
way the volleys burst out at the right time 
and went ringing all round the Hall sounded 
splendid. And the sight of thousands stand- 
ing up to give themselves to God, hundreds and 
hundreds for foreign service, and all for serv- 
ice somewhere, was magnificent. . . . My im- 
pression is that as they [the Swiss] have out- 
raged law all along they may very likely do it 
when it comes to sentence. . . . God only 
knows what is coming next, but anyhow we 
shall win." 

Towards the end of her imprisonment 
Catherine wrote: "God will open the door for 
us through this storm. My will is God's. All 
I want is to accomplish His desire for the 
world. Do not worry at all. Jesus is here. 
There is such wonderful victory ahead that all 
my cry is. Lord, make us equal to it! — ready 
in every way! Ever fighting, in jail as well 



102 THE MARECHALE 

as on the field, following on to know Him. 
I have been looking at that wonderful sight — 
Calvary. I must ever live in sight of it." 

The trial took place at Boudry on Saturday 
the 25th and Monday the 27th September. 
It excited the greatest interest in Switzerland 
and far beyond it. The Journal de Geneve 
said: "This prosecution at Boudry has an im- 
mense political significance in the highest sense 
of that word, and the decision, whatever it may 
be, will take its place in the history of Repub- 
lican rights." Even the most sanguine scarcely 
hoped for the acquittal of the accused. But 
the unexpected happened, and the triumph of 
righteousness was a woman's triumph. 

The Public Prosecutor spent much time in 
proving that Salvationists were mountebanks 
and fanatics. A young Englishwoman had 
flung an insult in the face of the Grand Coun- 
cil, accusing them of violating the constitu- 
tion. Her contempt for the law was the more 
surprising as the English never rebel against 
the law, however unjust it may be (!) . If the 
Armee du Salut was not suppressed they would 
have to enlarge their asylums. Christ, who 
was, perhaps, the most religious man who ever 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 103 

lived, favoured private rather than public 
prayer. Silent communion with God was bet- 
ter than getting up and shouting "I am saved!" 
While the accused placed herself above the law, 
the Queen of England was obliged to submit 
to Acts of Parliament. Having not only- 
ignored, but deHberately violated the decree, 
the Salutistes must bear the consequences, and 
no doubt they would be happy to receive the 
crown of martyrdom ! 

On the second day of the trial, after a 
speech in the defence by M. Monnier, the 
Marechale rose to plead her own cause. Though 
she had passed twelve days in prison, and sat 
many hours in the suffocating atmosphere of 
a crowded court-house, she overcame her ex- 
haustion, her spirit subduing the frail body. 
She had been accustomed to face great crowds 
since she was sixteen, and she was never more 
completely master of herself or her audience 
than she was in that critical hour. Her voice 
was never clearer, nor her manner more com- 
manding. Her brother Herbert, who was in 
the court, said he was amazed at her power. 
As she pleaded the cause of religious liberty, 
her hearers felt that she had not come to be 



104 THE MARECHALE 

judged but for judgment upon them all. Some 
extracts will serve to indicate the quality of 
her speech. 

"What is the need of the Armee du Salut? 
Allow me to read a passage from one of your 
own journals: ^Cantonal Governments will 
see with alarm the flood of demoralisation 
rising menacingly higher and higher; and in- 
stead of seeking to destroy the causes of this 
deluge, they only take away the remaining 
dams.' It is needless to enlarge on the neces- 
sity for an Armee du Salut in the face of these 
facts. 

"The Prosecutor has said, in speaking of 
the work, that it moved the entire population, 
and that there must be a cause for this. He 
has reason to say so. I agree with him; there 
must be a cause, far deeper than any that has 
been mentioned here to-day. It is at this cause 
that we strike — which exists in the heart of 
man. 

"As to our aim, we are trying to bring these 
people who outrage your laws, who fight 
against God, to the feet of Him who alone 
can change them, to the only hope that exists 
for them, the Saviour of the world. We work, 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 105 

we live, we suffer to do this. This is our one 
hope and object — ^to bring the world to the 
great Deliverer, Jesus Christ. 

"Ah! The question of all questions, the 
question which every intelligent man ought to 
face, is — What are we to do with the masses? 
If they are not reached by the power of the 
Gospel, a day will come when they will turn 
round against you, occasioning terrible trouble 
and disorder, and awful will be the conse- 
quences. Then, gentlemen, you will have rea- 
son to regret your action in this matter. If 
these disturbers are capable of manifesting 
such hatred, such rage against citizens who 
pray to God, they will also be capable of mani- 
festing the same rebeUious spirit against any 
other opinions, or any other law, which may 
not please them. 

"We have not made the people like this. 
Bear in mind that we have not created this 
terrible state of barbarism, which was let loose 
around that hall, and which has made my heart 
bleed many times in witnessing. Who is re- 
sponsible for this? We cannot be, for we have 
only been in your town a few months. 

"Although we have suffered terribly through 



106 THE MARECHALE 

misrepresentations that have been wilfully cir- 
culated about us, we are not discouraged ! We 
know that truth and justice will soon triumph. 
I love Switzerland all the more for what we 
have endured {Applause) . A little while and 
Switzerland will love us. We shall win thou- 
sands to righteousness, peace and heaven. 

"The Prosecutor referred to the Queen say- 
ing that even she was subject to the decrees of 
Parliament, but that I placed myself above 
her in refusing to become subject to the decrees 
of the Grand Council. There is no parallel 
between Her Majesty and myself. No act 
has been passed to forbid her praying in a 
wood, or I think Her Majesty would have 
something to say on that subject {Sensation). 

"One word in conclusion. You may punish 
us; you may imprison us; you may prosecute 
us as long as you are permitted ; but what you 
cannot do is to stop this work — to suppress it. 
Beware what you do for your country's sake, 
for Jesus Christ's sake. Take care that in 
banishing us you do not banish the light, that 
you do not banish Jesus Christ, and in that 
great day when you are called to give an ac- 



FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 107 

count you be found guilty of fighting against 
God." 

Such pleading was irresistible. The jury had 
not the courage to enforce the law. To their 
honour, they let themselves be swayed by con- 
siderations of equity. They found that while 
the accused had violated the decree she had 
not acted with "culpable intention." In conse- 
quence of this verdict she was acquitted. The 
sentence was received by her friends in the 
court with a burst of fervent "Amens." And 
the Marechale deserved the thanks of every 
Swiss patriot. By her bold and successful 
claim of right she had made history. At a 
time when the old Republic was forgetful of 
its noblest traditions, untrue to itself, she re- 
stored its ideal. She vindicated for every man 
and woman freedom to worship God according 
to their conscience. She brought back to the 
hills and valleys of Switzerland the crown 
rights of the Redeemer. 

No one appreciates or speaks more enthusi- 
astically to-day than the Marechale of the de- 
votion and bravery of her comrades. Colonel 
Clibborn first and foremost, and spiritual chil- 
dren at this time. 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 



CHAPTER VI 

THE SOUL OF FRANCE 

It is not easy to reach the ideal and spiritual 
elements of character which are masked by 
the light laughter or the polite scorn of the 
typical Frenchman, who believes, or pretends 
to believe, that religion is only for priests and 
women. At the opening of a new hall in the 
Rue Oberkamff , a big fellow shook his fist in 
the Marechale's face and said, "An English- 
man may accept reUgion — a German — or a 
heathen, but a Frenchman — never!" "O God, 
if You exist, save my soul, if I have one!" 
was the prayer of another man, who had at- 
tended the meetings for some time, and who 
indicated with a strange pathos the bewildered 
state of mind into which many of the educated, 
as well as the ignorant, had sunk. "Let there 
be no mistake," said a French writer, Louise 
de Croisilles; "it is by no means unnatural 
that the Army should have taken root in India, 

or even under Africa's burning sun, but that 

111 



112 THE MARECHALE 

it should be accepted in Paris, the centre of 
free-thought and unbelief, that is a thing in- 
credible." 

Nevertheless the Frenchman suffers from 
"the malady of the ideal," even as other men. 
His heart is restless until it rests in God, and 
it is sheer faithlessness to say that he cannot 
be won by the grace of God. If he is sceptical, 
it is because he has no conception of the fas- 
cinating loveliness of Christianity; if he is a 
scoffer, it is because he has never come in con- 
tact with human Hves which suggest to him 
the infinite goodness of God. 

After the Marechale's great legal victory, 
which was really a triumph of the Gospel over 
its enemies, she returned to Paris and quietly 
resumed her tasks. She was in nowise changed, 
though public opinion regarding her was un- 
doubtedly changed. She had become a person 
of note. Editors of newspapers and maga- 
zines sent reporters to her meetings at the Quai 
de Valmy, or at the new headquarters in the 
Rue Auber, and found piquant accounts of 
her sayings and doings to be excellent copy. 
Visitors to the city came to hear her. Artists 
begged for the honour of painting her portrait 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 113 

for the Salon, an honour which she steadily 
refused. The son of Garibaldi invited her to 
visit Italy, where, he said, she would be wel- 
comed and not treated as she had been in 
Switzerland. None of these things, however, 
moved her. As she had promised God in her 
prison that she would never be depressed by 
the calumnies of men, so now she prayed that 
she might never be elated by their praises. 
With a stronger faith and a more ardent hope, 
she plunged again into absorbing work. One 
sees that she worked with her imagination ; that 
she obeyed her intuitions ; that she proved the 
originality and inventiveness of love; and her 
efforts were so rewarded that 1884 was her 
annus mirahilis, at the end of which she wrote : 
"Can you imagine the bewilderment that comes 
over me when I sit down to convey some idea 
of the wonderful way in which God has led 
and helped us during the year? ... It is not 
too much to say that during the past twelve 
months we have passed from the position of a 
small and almost unknown mission to that of 
a great spiritual power, recognised and felt 
throughout France and Switzerland." 

A series of fresh inspirations contributed to 



114 THE MARECHALE 

this result. The first of these was the visita- 
tion of the cafes of Paris. One winter night 
the Marechale and two young comrades, 
Blanche Young and Kate Patrick, went out 
with shawls on their heads, and made their way 
to one of the boulevard cafes. The leader 
passed the door, and passed it again. She 
turned to her lieutenants and said, "You have 
never known your Marechale till now ; you see 
what a coward she is!" 

"No, no, no!" they both protested. 

At last she put her hand on the door, pushed 
it open, and went in. A man in a white apron 
was selKng drink. Going up to him, she said, 
"May I sing something?" 

He stared open-mouthed. 

Trembling from head to foot, she repeated, 
"I should like to sing something." 

"Very weU!" 
She began: 

"Le ciel est ma belle patrie, 

Les anges y font leur sejour; 
Le soldat qui lutte et qui prie 
Y sera bientot a son tour." 

While she sang, Blanche chimed in with her 
guitar and her second voice. As they pro- 




THE MARECH. 

{From the painting of Baron Cederstro 




Page 114 



N THE CAFE 

[) in the Picture Gallery of Stockholm) 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 115 

ceeded, the smoking, drinking, and card-play- 
ing ceased, and every face was turned towards 
them. They sang on: 

"En marche, en marche, 
Soldats^ vers la patrie ! 
En marche, en marche, 
Soldats, vers la patrie!** 

When they had finished the hymn, the Mare- 
chale thanked her audience, adding that they 
could hear her again at Rue Auber Hall; and 
that she knew a Friend, of whom she wished 
to tell them. As she and her comrades turned 
to walk out, the man in the white apron bowed, 
as if they had done him a service. 

"May I come another time?" said the Mare- 
chale. 

"Certainly, Mademoiselle!" 

They visited sixteen cafes that night, and 
when she got home she felt she had never been 
happier in her life, never nearer to Jesus. She 
had tried in her own way to obey His com- 
mand, "Let your light shine before men." 
Since then, thousands and thousands of cafes 
have been visited, and much good has thus been 
done. Let one case stand for many. 



116 THE MARECHALE 

There used to be a well-known resort in 
Paris called the Cafe de FEnfer, the windows 
and walls of which were painted with lurid 
scenes representing hell. There rouged and 
powdered singing girls entertained people of 
the dare-devil type, who sat drinking and smok- 
ing at little tables. From an open coffin a 
grim skeleton stared at everybody, and prizes 
were given for the most audacious witticisms 
about death. The more outrageous the blas- 
phemies were, the louder were the roars of ap- 
plause with which they were received. 

But the Marechale and her young lieuten- 
ants, "armed in complete steel" — the panoply 
of God — were not afraid of the gates of hell. 
Having obtained permission to sing, they 
mounted the estrade^ and rendered some of 
their most attractive part-songs. The cafe 
orchestra at once took up the airs as if it had 
been paid to do so. The songs of Paradise 
were well received even in those regions, and 
then the Marechale, stepping forward, made 
a little speech: 

"You are very clever here. You play very 
well. But it is a role that you play. Your 
laughter is not real; I can tell you the source 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 117 

of true laughter and true joy. This is not life, 
it is death; I can tell you what real life is. 
This is not peace, it is an effort to drown care 
and forget trouble; I can tell you the secret 
of peace. Let me give you my address, where 
you can hear us sing again." 

It required as much moral courage to de- 
Hver that speech as to face all the jurists of 
Helvetia. 

When the Marechale was leaving, she passed 
a lovely girl, in whose ear she whispered, 
"What are you doing here? you ought to be in 
bed." 

"Who will give me a supper or a bed?" the 
girl plaintively asked. 

'^^I will!" exclaimed the Marechale; "come 
with me, quick!" 

She hailed a cab, put the girl in, and drove 
away. The poor child, eighteen years of age, 
had a sad tale to tell. She had noble blood in 
her veins, and her mother and she had both 
been cruelly wronged. The Marechale led her 
to Christ and ultimately secured for her a posi- 
tion in one of the best colleges of America, 
where she was universally respected. Not long 
after she was installed there, she sent the Mare- 



118 THE MARECHALE 

chale 500 francs, with the pathetic message, 
"Save another, as you saved me." 

The Marechale's methods natm^ally gave 
offence to those who had not the courage to 
adopt them. Late one night she and some 
comrades were standing at the door of a thea- 
tre while it was emptying. One of her young 
officers cried in clear, penetrating tones, "Pre- 
pare to meet thy God!" The words seemed 
to send an electric shock through the gay 
crowd. Thereupon a gentleman came forward 
to the Marechale and said: 

"Mademoiselle, you are evidently young 
girls of good family, and I am scandalised to 
see you here at this hour. I, too, occupy my- 
self with preaching, but I am shocked at your 
behaviour." 

"Really?" she replied, "and I am scandalised 
that you are scandalised. You profess to be- 
heve the Gospel. How are you to get these 
indifferent tens of thousands to hear of the 
Saviour? They won't come to listen to you. 
What more natural and more in accord with 
the principles of Jesus, than to go to them and 
compel them to hear?" 

Ten minutes after, the gentleman returned 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 119 

and slid a five- franc piece into her hand, say- 
ing: 

"It is you who are right!" 

It was impossible for young girls to be in 
the boulevards towards midnight without be- 
ing sometimes molested. But the leader would 
instruct her soldiers thus: "If they say the 
vilest things in the world to you, remember that 
is only the outside. Think of their souls which 
cost so dear to Christ. Say one or two sen- 
tences that will remain with them, and pass on." 

More than once she proved this method of 
dealing to be very effective. In a corner of 
one of the boulevards a "gentleman" ap- 
proached her and asked for a rendezvous. She 
looked at him in silence, which he took for con- 
sent. 

"Where?" he asked, taking out his pencil 
and note-book. 

"Devant le Trone de Dieur (Before the 
Throne of God!; 

The man took to his heels, and ran. 

That went all over France. One day the 
same sword wiU pierce the conscience of every 
roue in the universe. 

The Marechale's second original idea was to 



120 THE MARECHALE 

begin a series of Conferences (Meetings) in 
the fashionable Lecture Hall of the Boulevard 
des Capueines. Her increasing popularity 
only deepened her sense of duty to the city of 
her adoption, and suggested to her the possi- 
bility of bringing Christ to the Boulevards as 
well as to the Villette. She could not live in gay 
Paris without profoundly pitying the thought- 
less, infidel Rich, for whom it is proverb- 
ially so hard to enter the kingdom of heaven. 
Her idea of attacking the central stronghold 
of the world's fashion and pleasure was a dar- 
ing one for a woman, especially for a woman 
of the Marechale's youthful years. About this 
time she read the Life of Napoleon^ and found 
in his astonishing career many lessons for an 
evangehst. She was especially struck by his 
faith in his star, and his contempt for ''ce bete 
de mot, impossible/' She knew that she had 
something better to trust than a star, and 
stronger reason for holding that all things are 
possible. 

Her new plan of campaign was great alike 
in its conception and its execution. From the 
very first the Conferences for men were as- 
tonishingly successful, and they were renewed 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 121 

year after year. The audiences were very dif- 
ferent from a Keswick or Northfield congre- 
gation, in which the preaching is mostly to the 
converted. Perhaps the best parallel to the 
Marechale's Conferences is to be found in 
Professor Drummond's Sunday evening meet- 
ings for students (men only) in the Oddfel- 
lows Hall, Edinburgh, which, by a strange co- 
incidence, began in the same year. Having 
enjoyed the friendship of both these evangel- 
ists, and listened to them many scores of times, 
I have often been forcibly struck by their like- 
ness to each other, and for power to rivet the 
attention and inspire the confidence of culti- 
vated men of the world I have met nobody to 
compare with them. 

When the Marechale came to hold her first 
Conference, the proprietor of the hall entered 
her ante-room and advised her to deliver a sort 
of ethical lecture, rather than speak of salva- 
tion, as it was the worldly fashionable public 
who would assemble, and he was afraid they 
would not be pleased if they heard too much of 
religion. But they listened with rapt attention 
while she spoke on the text "Without God and 
without hope in the world." Of the second 



122 THE MARECHALE 

Conference Galignani's Messenger said, "The 
subject, 'The Greatest Sin,' was treated with 
a force of religious arguments which made a 
visible impression on many persons in the audi- 
ence. The attention was deep and respectful. 
The Hall was crowded, and the doors were 
vainly besieged by a numerous crowd, the 
greater part of whom remained outside the 
open windows to hear the address." Another 
leading journal said, "She has profoundly as- 
tonished the citizen sceptic, who has been out 
of the habit of being astonished for a long 
time." 

Her brother Ballington was present at a 
later meeting, and described the impression 
made on himself as one who did not know 
French. "I had to cover my face more than 
once while our Marechale spoke. Her words, 
though in a foreign language, yet seemed 
understandable. The Spirit does not confine 
Himself to words alone. He speaks through 
the countenance, and eyes, and hands — He fills 
the Temples of His children. Three things 
struck me in that meeting : first, the rapt atten- 
tion and interest of the audience, and there 
seemed few who were not impressed at the 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 123 

close; second, the manner in which the people 
remained in the after-meeting on to the end; 
third, the utter amazement, and yet perfect 
solemnity of the congregation, when some sin- 
ner came up through the aisles to seek peace, 
even rising as though to make sure that what 
they saw was a fact." Then he adds — and one 
notes the beautiful transition — "I was also 
present and took part in meetings at Paris in 
which the very poorest were attending by hun- 
dreds, and at which I saw men of the vilest 
caste and life getting saved." No small part of 
the Marechale's charm lay in her flexibility and 
adaptability — her Pauline habit of becoming 
all things to all men — to the rich and to the 
poor, to the wise and to the unwise — that she 
might win some. 

At a later time the Marechale delivered some- 
what similar addresses in other cities of France 
such as Nimes, Marseilles, Havre, Rouen, 
Lyons — and she was everywhere astonished to 
find that the French, who seem the most 
thoughtless, are yet among the most thought- 
ful people in the world. The result of such 
Conferences as these cannot be tabulated. For 
one thing, they made the Marechale more than 



124 THE MARECHALE 

ever a mother-confessor and spiritual director. 
The thoughts of many hearts were revealed to 
her at private interviews of which no record 
was kept, and in letters, one of which may be 
given as containing the secret of the Mare- 
chale's power — her possession of Christ's Spirit 
— a second as showing the abyss of doubt from 
which many of her hearers had to be rescued, 
and some others as indicating the wonderful 
success which often attended her efforts. 

The first runs as follows: "I am glad you 
accept my request to visit my home. You will 
consider the intention in asking you to come 
under my roof, like One before you, who had 
the noblest Heart which ever beat for man- 
kind. It is because this Great Heart has pos- 
sessed yours to the degree of rendering you 
like Himself, that you have profoundly moved 
me and made me better. Certainly I will speak 
with you on these vital subjects, but I need 
more and more the moral and spiritual atmos- 
phere of the meetings: this opens the heart 
and at the same time deadens the opposition 
of the mind. Oh, if the latter could hold its 
peace! ... I have lived much in solitude, and 
naturally these problems have been always with 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 125 

me. I may say that the Infinite has tortured 
me for twenty years: lately I have arrived at 
the conclusion that one can know nothing. So 
I shall be glad to speak with you and at 
length." 

A second correspondent wrote : "Your mar- 
vellous faith, your simple and powerful elo- 
quence so deeply moved me that I cannot but 
thank you. I thank you as an artist, as a 
sincere admirer of beautiful work, of great 
characters ; I thank you as a man blase, scepti- 
cal, benumbed and deadened. As a child I 
adored Jesus, and now, after having thought 
much and suffered infinite pains which you 
cannot understand, I have said adieu to faith 
and also adieu to hope ! I have become one of 
those you call sceptics. Ah! do not say 'ter- 
rible' sceptic, but unfortunate, pitiable, un- 
happy sceptic. You are, Madame, a great, 
beautiful, generous heart, and if ever earnest 
good wishes have been worth anything, I have 
cherished them for you, your work, and those 
who fight by your side. You will believe me, 
an unbeliever, who envies you, admires you, 
and ideally loves you." 

A third of her hearers wrote succinctly: 



126 THE MARECHALE 

"Two of your meetings have sufficed to de- 
stroy infidel convictions of twenty years' 
standing." 

A fourth, after testifying to his respect and 
confidence, said : "What your soul yearns for 
is conversion. You would like me to add, I 
am converted. I cannot say that I am. But 
you have made an incredible impression on me, 
and you have made me love the Christ I never 
loved." He evidently could not rest there, and 
soon he sent a second letter, describing with 
thankfulness how one night, in prayer and 
agonising mental controversy, he had received 
a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, which had 
finally slain his doubt and made him a beUever 
in God. 

The twofold purpose of the Conferences was 
to conquer the feelings and tastes, the etiquette 
and conventionality, of people of the world, 
and to awaken faith in unbeUevers. One day 
a very bad man thrust some bank-notes into 
the Marechale's hand, saying while he did so: 

"I believe in nothing." 

"You believe in nothing, and yet you give 
me these bank-notes !" 

He replied, "I beUeve in you, and I wish you 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 127 

hftd a hall in every town and hamlet and vil- 
lage in my comitry." 

"Pull out your watch," she said, "I believe 
in your watch, I believe that it keeps time, but 
I do not believe in its maker! ... I am naturally 
just as great a lover of ease and comfort as 
you are. The motive power — la force motrice 
— of my life, the spring upon which everything 
turns, is the love of Christ. You believe in me ; 
believe in Him who has made me what I am." 

The Marechale's third new departure was 
perhaps the most important of all — the found- 
ing of an IBcole Militaire, or school for cadets, 
somewhat similar to the Military School at 
Clapton, over which her sister Emma at that 
time presided. When Catherine first went to 
France, a very noted Protestant pastor said 
to her, "You will never get three Frenchwom- 
en to live together in peace." But at the Train- 
ing Home, Avenue Lumiere 3, in the Villette, 
where the Marechale lived all the year round 
with her officers, there were as many as forty 
or fifty young women — among whom, at one 
time, a Princess's daughters were side by side 
with scullery maids — and the harmony, the 



128 THE MARECHALE 

love, the spirit of "never mind me," which pre- 
vailed was one of the miracles of the work in 
France. 

To the training of company after company 
of young cadets — French, Swiss, English, Bel- 
gian, German, Italian and Russian — the Mare- 
chale gave a great deal of her time and 
strength, her pattern being ever our Lord's 
own training of the Twelve. All obeyed her 
joyfully and without question. She realised 
intuitively that the highest thing in training is 
not discipline, but something which discipUne 
follows as light follows the sun. That some- 
thing is the spirit, the atmosphere, which men 
and women are brought into and which trans- 
forms them. In the Ecole Militaire it was the 
selflessness of people who. did not care what 
became of them. Where that spirit takes pos- 
session of any one, there is no need to say to 
him, "You shall do this or that." The law of 
the spirit of life makes him obedient without 
constraint. 

The spirit of the Marechale's leadership is 
somewhat expressed in Garibaldi's call to 
arms often quoted by her. His followers 
understood his motives, realised his disinterest- 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 1^9 

edness, saw that rewards and honours were 
nothing to the man who was seeking the hb- 
erty of Italy. Therefore they loved him so 
much that they would have died for him. There 
was no marked difference between the Staff 
and the Field, and yet there was discipline, 
obedience, devotion such as the world has 
scarcely ever seen equalled. 

That was the spirit which the Marechale 
sought to impart to the ficole Militaire. 
Everything else — how to study the Bible, how 
to conduct meetings, how to use the voice, how 
to deal with souls — was subordinated by her 
to the one thing needful — the spirit of sacri- 
fice. "We are sometimes told," she once wrote, 
"that our uniforms, our young women speak- 
ing in public, our tambourines and our proces- 
sions bring contempt upon religion. It is a 
mistake. That which is the laughing-stock of 
the world and of hell is a religion without sac- 
rifice. People will never believe in Christians 
who, while professing to be disciples of Him 
who had not where to lay His head, live in lux- 
ury, seek first the comfort of their family, the 
health and position of their children, and let 
their souls perish for lack of that Gospel which 



130 THE MARECHALE 

they profess to believe. There is the secret of 
the unbelief of France ; that is what makes the 
young who are in search of the truth cry 'Com- 
edy!' On the other hand, those faces which 
radiate the light from on high, those young 
people who rise up to give themselves to God 
instead of the world, those men and women 
who declare, with a sincerity which leaves no 
room for doubt, that they consecrate their life 
to God for the saving of souls, are more elo- 
quent than the most beautiful discourses." 

The faces of officers and cadets who sur- 
rounded the Marechale on her platform un- 
doubtedly constituted a large element of her 
power. Renee Gauge, the Sociahst, wrote a 
fine appreciation of her and her comrades, in 
which she confesses that what she finds "re- 
markable among these young girls, pretty as 
well as plain, is the complete absence of the 
ordinary feminine expression. ... In looking 
with searching, scrutinising eye at the faces 
enveloped in this ugly bonnet, we have not 
deciphered the least vestige of this expression, 
neither timidity, nor awkwardness, nor restless- 
ness, nor the consciousness that people are 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 131 

thinking of them. Nothing. These faces are 
the free faces of free creatures." 

One day a French Baron, who had received 
a great blessing at the Marechale's Confer- 
ences, said to her in the great hall at the Rue 
Auber, "What you lack here is pictures; for 
instance, the saints. Those beautiful faces, 
with their sweet celestial expressions, diffuse 
a sentiment of reverence and quietness, and 
they would form such a beautiful background 
to you. You should have the Virgin, and Saint 
Francis, and many others. That is what you 
lack in all your halls: could we not do some- 
thing?" 

"Baron," said the Marechale, "will you come 
here next Sunday evening?" 

"Yes, certainly. Are you going to speak?" 
He never lost a chance of hearing her. 

"Yes; be sure you do not miss it." 

Next Sunday evening she marshalled her 
little group of officers. She filed them in, men 
on one side, women on the other. She stood 
in the midst of them and spoke. At the end 
of the meeting the Baron came forward. 

"Marechale," he said, "you have no need of 



132 THE MARECHALE 

pictures. Those figures ! those faces ! they are 
your pictures." 

Her friend Frank Crossley was greatly 
struck by this incident. He wrote: "I was 
specially interested in the remark upon inspired 
faces. I once heard Rendel Harris say of the 
bibUcal critics, that they might tear the volume 
into shreds, but never could rub off the light 
of God from the faces of His people." 

One of the cadets of the Ecole Militaire was 
Constance Monod, daughter of the great Prot- 
estant preacher whose hymn, "Oh, the bitter 
shame and sorrow," is known everywhere. 
Having received salvation and rich spiritual 
blessings from attending the Marechale's meet- 
ings, she became one of her most devoted offi- 
cers and warmest friends. She was one day 
put up to speak to a very rough audience of 
lewd, low men, and one of the roughest and 
lewdest of them said, with tears in his eyes : 

"Oh, what extraordinary purity in that 
face!" 

That was the expression which gave so many 
of the cadets their power in the cafes and in 
the slums. It was what they were, far more 
than what they said, that did the work. 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 133 

Among the new cadets there was always a 
great heart-searching. Were they sure of their 
vocation? Had they a due sense of the seri- 
ousness, the sacredness, the responsibihty, the 
opportunity of the call to work and fight for 
God? If they were not right there, everything 
was wrong. But if they had really left the 
world, and come to learn to know GoD^ He re- 
vealed Himself to them, and it was marvellous 
how rapidly they grew in that heart-knowledge 
which is always so much deeper than head- 
knowledge. 

Whenever troubles and difficulties arose, the 
Marechale's method was not to evade them, 
but to grip things at the bottom. An invita- 
tion to "come and have a cup of tea" would 
lead to earnest talk and prayer, by which she 
nipped many an evil in the bud. These "per- 
sonals," as such interviews were called, were 
remembered ever afterwards with gratitude. 

The conquest of self, the triumph of the 
spirit of love, was illustrated in small matters 
as well as in great. One day a Frenchman, 
Francois, refused to clean the boots of another 
cadet, who was a German. 

"I clean a G^erman's boots? Never! never!" 



134 THE MARECHALE 

The Marechale quietly said: 

"The boots will be cleaned." 

"Never by me!" 

"By you." 

"Well, not now, let them wait !" 

The whole day passed, and the boots were 
not cleaned. The Marechale knew what Fran- 
9ois suffered inwardly, and got him alone in the 
evening. 

"Jesus died for the Germans," she said. 

His lips remained tightly pressed. He suf- 
fered, and she suffered with him. After a 
moment's silence he burst into a torrent. 

"We have endured too much! Think of the 
siege of Paris. That beast of a Bismarck! 
Oh! our country has suffered. Clean a Ger- 
man's boots? Never!" 

He raved. The Marechale was quiet and 
listened for a time. Then she said: 

"All that may be true; but you are going 
to have a greater victory over the Germans 
than ever the Germans won over you. The 
triumph which they had over France was a 
flea-bite in comparison." 

She got his ear, and talked to him of the 
highest things. The victory which Jesus won 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 1S5 

on Calvary over Pilate and the Priests and 
Judas, this must be Francois' victory. 

"Go back to your trade unless you can win 
this victory. This makes an apostle of Fran- 
9ois, and nothing else. These boots are only 
a detail, but they have brought to light some- 
thing in you that is hindering the great vic- 
tory." 

And so they talked. She would not force 
him. Next morning she gave a lecture, at the 
end of which he came into her room and sat 
down. There was a moment's silence, and then 
he collapsed, falling all of a heap and sobbing 
like a child. 

"Marechale," he said, "I will clean the 
boots!" 

Such training inside the ficole made the ca- 
dets ready for any conflict outside, and the 
triumph of the spirit of love was in some in- 
stances a preparation for death. The first of 
the Marechale's cadets to win the martyr's 
crown was Louis Jeanmonod. 

He was a Swiss youth, finely built, nearly 
six foot, and twenty-one years of age; a true 
soldier, devoted, courageous, tender-hearted. 
His months of training were almost over, and 



136 THE MARECHALE 

in the last three weeks he developed wonder- 
fully. He visited the cafes with great success, 
singing and speaking, holding his auditors in 
breathless silence. He had great power in con- 
victing people, and often his opponents would 
become his friends and ask him to continue to 
speak to them. 

On a January night in 1885 he was guard- 
ing the door of the Hall at the Quai de Valmey, 
when one of the roughs ran at him head fore- 
most and butted him violently in the stomach. 
Louis managed to shut the door, and next day 
went on bravely with his work, even selling the 
En Avant in the evening, till the pain became 
very severe. The doctor found that a quan- 
tity of blood had already settled in his lungs, 
and soon after pronounced his case beyond all 
human skill. 

Louis was for a time delirious, but he had 
never in his past life played the fool, and he 
uttered no word that his mother would not 
have wished to hear. He always seemed to 
be starting on a campaign. Were the caps, 
the bags, and everything else ready? Oh! 
what glorious times were coming! 

When the delirium passed, and his mind 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 137 

became calm, his pallid face shone with a 
strange light. As soon as the Marechale came 
to his bedside, he saluted and said — 

"Amen, Marechale, amen!" 

What were his thoughts of the ruffian who 
had dealt the deadly blow? He had only a 
single thought — "One day he will be saved." 
Detectives came to receive the dying man's 
description of the assailant. A message from 
them to this effect was conveyed to Louis, who 
answered it in a single word: 

""Jamaisr (Never!) 

But he described the guilty man to the 
Marechale, that she might know him and pray 
for him. 

Seeking her hand when the end drew near, 
he said — 

"Oh, I love so much to hold your fingers." 

"Jesus will take your hands, Louis, and 
guide you into the port." 

"I will — let myself — be guided — ^by Him." 

The Marechale prayed, and with the spirit 
of Saint Stephen in his breast and the words 
"It is too beautiful!" on his lips, he went to be 
with Christ. Belleville and the Villette were 
stirred to the depths by a martyr's funeral. 



138 THE MARECHALE 

and at the grave Theodore Monod spoke words 
which moved the hearts of all. 

The young Marechale who gathered round 
her men and women of this stamp — a willing 
people in the day of the Lord's power, ready 
for everything, faithful unto death — evidently 
possessed high quahties of leadership, and ere 
long the spirit of the Ecole MiUtaire was to be 
found in every station of the Army throughout 
France and Switzerland. Speaking at one of 
the General's great meetings in Scotland, Pro- 
fessor Henry Drummond said that after trav- 
elling all over the South of Europe, visiting 
many cathedrals and hearing famous orators, 
he had landed at Marseilles, and felt more of 
the presence and power of Christ in the Salva- 
tion Army meeting-place of that town than 
he had experienced in all his wanderings. The 
General repeated this to the Marechale, and 
she f otmd that the meeting which had so pro- 
foundly impressed the Professor had bedn 
conducted by a young officer, Mile. Dormois, 
who had recently left the Training School in 
Paris. 

That the authorities at home praised God 
for the Marechale's work scarcely needs say- 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 139 

ing. Her father's appreciation found expres- 
sion in every letter. Here are brief extracts 
from three of them. 

"My dear girl, my very precious girl, I 
know you are after my own heart. I place 
boundless confidence in your judgment and 
resolutions. Do not be afraid of anjrthing or 
any one." 

"You are a true heroine, a Joan of Arc, 
indeed." 

"You must have a fearful strain upon you. 
Still a great part of your business is to keep 
yourself quiet and free from wearing care. 
To be cool and steady under fire is the quality 
of the very best soldiers. I fear I have not 
excelled in this direction, and it is a very diffi- 
cult property in our family, seeing how full 
of sympathy and feeling our hearts and lives 
are, but God can do much for us." 

Every letter from her eldest brother Bram- 
well, who was the Chief of Staff*, was a "Well 
done!" from over the sea. Writing in 1885 — 
the year of his and Stead's heroic crusade 
against vice — ^he said: "I get more and more 
dissatisfied with things human every day. The 
world is all gone mad. If it was only bad, and 



140 THE MARECHALE 

not mad, we could mend it, but being both I 
get less and less hope instead of more! We 
will now attend to quahty more. If we could 
get better people surely we should go faster. 
I solemnly beheve you are ahead of us on the 
Continent in this direction." 

In the following year he wrote: "Do not 
think you will ever be less dear to me than you 
have been. You cannot be. I love and admire 
you, and if you were my general to-morrow 
I should follow you to the last gasp and stick 
while there was one limb of me left." 



WOMAN'S VOCATION 



CHAPTER VII 



woman's vocation 



"There can be neither Jew nor Greek; 
there can be neither bond nor free; there can 
be no male and female: for ye are all one in 
Christ Jesus." After the lapse of many cen- 
turies this great apostolic saying is beginning 
to yield up its meaning and its blessing. The 
Mother of the Army was one of the first to 
assert woman's liberty, and her daughters en- 
tered into a sacred heritage. Having become 
a public speaker at fourteen, and seen the work 
of faith rewarded with countless signs follow- 
ing, the Marechale could never harbour any 
secret fear that her ministry might be grieving 
the Spirit of God. It was impossible, how- 
ever, that she should work for years without 
encountering many who had strong prejudices. 
Our Lord's disciples "marvelled that He spake 
with a woman," and there are still disciples who 
marvel when a woman speaks for Him. 

14S 



lU THE MARECHALE 

In the summer of her third year in France, 
the Mareehale attacked the old city of Nimes, 
in the largely Protestant Gard — the first of a 
series of campaigns which were the means of 
bringing a blessing to a number of the prov- 
inces of France. On her arrival she found that 
M. Peyron, an eminent judge, who had greatly 
benefited from hearing her before, had ar- 
ranged a preliminary meeting of the orthodox 
of Nimes — pastors and their wives and other 
Protestant workers — to the number of about 
120. He was anxious that they should be 
won before her campaign began, but he had 
no idea that he had prepared for her one of 
the battles royal of her life. 

The meeting being thrown open, the doc- 
trine of holiness — God's power to keep His 
children from sinning — first came up, and was 
violently attacked by several pastors who con- 
founded it with perfectionism. Their remarks 
were loudly applauded, and one lady screamed 
above the rest — 

"Let him that is without sin get up and 
testify." 

Greatly daring, the Mareehale whispered to 
a comrade who sat beside her, "Rise, Bisson," 



WOMAN'S VOCATION 145 

which he did, and in a few simple words testi- 
fied, not indeed to his own perfection, but to 
God's power to sanctify and keep as well as 
justify. 

After a momentary lull, the storm became 
fiercer than ever, and the ministry of women 
was now the cause of war. The Marechale 
alluded to her mother's manifesto on the sub- 
ject. 

"We have read it," said a lady, "and we do 
not agree with it. Women are meant for the 
home. They are commanded to be silent in the 
churches." 

"Besides," cried another, "you are not old 
enough." 

The Marechale quoted the words, "Let no 
man despise thy youth." 

"But that," retorted a pastor's wife, "was 
said to a man." 

Thereupon the babel of voices became deaf- 
ening. 

"Pretty and prepossessing girls," a matron 
was heard to say, "should not show themselves 
in public." 

"If you do speak," said a pastor, skilled in 



146 THE MARECHALE 

distinctions, "you should speak to women only, 
and not before men." 

All through the storm the central figure was 
quiet and self-possessed. But she was thinking 
hard. The idea of a distinction in sex had 
never come before her as a speaker ; it was new 
and strange to her. When she at length spoke 
again, she put the result of her thinking into 
a simple, memorable, unanswerable dictum: 

"But there is no sex in soul." 

Perhaps somebody had said the same thing 
before, but it was none the less original on her 
part. Then she expanded the truth : 

"The needs of a man's soul are the same as 
a woman's, and vice versa. You do not get up 
and say there are so many men and so many 
women in a meeting. They all need salvation, 
pardon, purity, peace; all the gifts and graces 
of the Spirit are for men and women alike. Of 
course," she continued, "if any woman is so 
light and frivolous that she makes such a dis- 
tinction, that certainly proves that she has no 
vocation to be an evangelist, and I should send 
her home by the next train." 

She felt that the atmosphere of the room 
was horrible. Religious controversies, like re- 



WOMAN'S VOCATION 147 

ligious wars, create a more frightful spirit 
than any other quarrels. Instead of prolong- 
ing the discussion, the Marechale sank on her 
knees and began to pray. She had won by 
prayer many victories which were remembered 
after long years. When she was a child of 
fourteen, she attended a meeting of her moth- 
er's at Ryde in the Isle of Wight. She sat far 
back beside the door, listening till the address 
was ended, and then she heard her mother ask 
if some brother or sister would pray. As no- 
body responded, and the silence became too op- 
pressive to bear, Katie rose and poured out 
her heart to God in tones of passionate earnest- 
ness, seeking for a victory ere the meeting 
ended. When she got home, she was folded 
in her mother's arms and covered with kisses; 
and forty years after, when she was herself 
conducting a mission at Ryde, a saintly lady 
of ninety-two told her that no prayer lived in 
her memory like that child's prayer. 

It was such a prayer — long, intense, passion- 
ate — that the Marechale prayed among the 
orthodox of Nimes. That night the eldest 
daughter of M. Peyron, a beautiful, worldly 
girl, was won for Christ. At seven o'clock 



148 THE MARECHALE 

on the following morning two pastors, MM. 
Challand and Babut, along with M. Peyron, 
awoke the Marechale. They had come to say, 
for themselves and others, how they deplored 
the scene of the preceding night, and to beg 
forgiveness. 

On Sunday morning the campaign proper 
was begun in the Alcasar, which was packed, 
and the wives of several pastors were among 
those who came in tears to the penitent form. 
Albin Peyron, junior, who is to-day the leader 
of the Army in Switzerland, began the new 
life at a "Night with Jesus" which was held 
after that meeting. In his youth he was the 
founder of La Petite Armee, which did much 
good work among the children of Nimes and 
other towns of Southern France. 

While the Marechale was always at home in 
crowds, she loved quiet interviews with indi- 
viduals if possible still more. In many of 
these talks the subject was the victory of faith. 
During one of her tournees, she was conduct- 
ing meetings in a theatre at Cannes. On a 
lovely September evening she was walking 
towards the sea, lost in admiration of the sun- 



WOMAN'S VOCATION 149 

set. Fatigued with her Sunday morning's 
work, she was seeking a little repose. She ob- 
served a priest slowly proceeding towards the 
hill on which stood a little Catholic church. His 
appearance struck her; he looked at once so 
distinguished and so sad. An inner voice said 
to her, "Speak to that priest." "I cannot," 
she said, "he would think me mad." But the 
voice said the same words a second time, and 
then she instantly obeyed. Hurrying towards 
the priest, she said — 

"Good-evening, mon pere, I presume you 
are going to the church on the hill. May I 
accompany you, for I would speak with you on 
spiritual subjects?" 

Uncovering his head, and bowing with great 
respect, he answered, "Certainly, madame." 

They walked on for a little in silence. Then 
she said — 

"What must I do to be saved, my father?" 

"Keep the ten commandments," he an- 
swered at once. 

"But the rich young man who came to Jesus 
could say with his hand on his heart that he had 
kept them all, and yet had no assurance of sal- 



150 THE MARECHALE 

vation. He was in great trouble. He said, 
*What must I do to be saved?' " 

"Oh, then you must take the holy Eucharist 
very often." 

"But those who take it, my father, are they 
saved from sinning? Are they not the victims 
of the power of evil, the same as others?" 

"Oh! yes, madame, but then there is the 
Confessional." 

"But does not the same thing apply to the 
Confessional, my father? You must know that 
there are tens of thousands in France who con- 
fess, but fall again the next day. They have 
not found rest. Is not Christ ready to save 
us if we are ready to be saved?" 

"Alas ! madame, we shall sin always, always, 
to the very end of our lives." 

"But, my father, were not St. Augustine, 
St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena, 
Fenelon and many others, delivered from the 
slavery of sin and self? They attained to 
something definite — ^to holiness." 

He turned with vehemence and said, raising 
his voice — 

"Ah! madame, but those were extraordinary 
lives. Those people were saints." 



WOMAN'S VOCATION 151 

"No, my father, they were men and women 
Uke you and me. What God did for St. Au- 
gustine or St. Catherine of Siena, can He not 
do it for me if I am ready to fulfil the condi- 
tions which He lays down? What does religion 
do, what is it worth, if it cannot deliver us from 
sin?" 

He did not answer. He was silently think- 
ing. 

She went on, "Is Christ a Saviour, yes or 
no?" 

"Oh, yes, yes, yes. He is!" 

"Has He saved you, my father?" 

They stood still for a moment, and he turned 
his face away, with a look of poignant sadness. 
Then followed a confession — one of the deep- 
est, most heartfelt cries she had ever listened 
to — ending with the words, "Alas, alas! all the 
days of my life I sin, and I expect to sin to my 
latest breath." 

The Marechale was profoundly moved, and 
felt that she stood upon holy groimd. At last 
she spoke — 

"Then Calvary is the greatest fiasco the 
world has ever seen." 



152 THE MARECHALE 

Stretching out his hand, he said, "Oh, ma- 
dame, do not say that ; it is blasphemy." 

"But, my father, we are in the presence of 
facts, not fancies. You have left what men 
prize most. You have lived up to your light. 
And what do I find? Torment instead of rest, 
conflict instead of assurance, bondage instead 
of deliverance. Surely, my father, Jesus did 
not come to increase our burdens, but to relieve 
them. You remember His word, *Come unto 
me and I will give you rest.' He said, *My 
yoke is easy and my burden is light.' Are 
these theories to be preached in pulpits, or are 
they realities?" 

By this time they stood on the summit of 
the hill, and she said — 

"You are going to preach to-night, mon 
pere?" 

"Yes." 

"Would you like that we should go down 
the hill together and resume our conversation?" 

"It would be a great pleasure, madame." 

He preached one of the best sermons she 
had ever heard, partly inspired, she could not 
help thinking, by their intimate talk. As the 
congregation moved out, she stepped into a 



WOMAN'S VOCATION 153 

Confessional box to wait for him. She saw 
him turning this way and that with a look of 
disappointment, and, stepping out, said to 
him — 

"I am here, mon 'pere" 

They began to descend the hill together. 
"My father," she said, "I greatly enjoyed your 
sermon. But how can you show others the 
way of deliverance if you have not found it 
yourself? How can you unbind if you are not 
unbound? How can you heal if you are not 
healed? How, my father? Do you not see 
that all this is only from the head, not from 
the life, the heart?" 

"It is true! But I try, oh, my God, I try!" 

"But it does not come in that way — ^by our 
struggles." 

"Then how?" he exclaimed in a tone of de- 
spair. 

"Does He not say, 'Abide in me, and ask 
what you will, and it shall be done unto you'? 
Does not St. Paul testify, *I can do all things 
through Christ which strengtheneth me.' How 
many have given praise to Him who is 'able 
to save to the uttermost' and 'able to present 



154 THE MARECHALE 

us faultless' ! Put Him to the proof. If any 
one has the right to salvation, surely you have." 
They paused under a tree in the stillness of 
evening, and, while he stood with bowed head, 
she knelt beside him and prayed. 



THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 

Early in 1887 the Marechale became the 
wife of Mr. Arthur Sydney Chbborn, an Irish 
gentleman of Quaker extraction, Hneally de- 
scended from Barclay of Ury, the hero of one 
of Whittier's finest poems. Brought up in 
Bessbrook, which was called the model town 
from the fact that there was no public-house, 
police barracks or pawnshop in it, he renounced 
excellent business prospects in answer to a 
call which first came to him through a simple, 
earnest Quaker minister, "Sydney, will thee 
not come with us?" The visit of some repre- 
sentatives of Salvationism to Bessbrook turned 
the current of his thoughts in a new direction, 
making him exclaim, "Here is primitive Quak- 
erism, primitive Wesleyanism, primitive Chris- 
tianity !" As he had spent some years at school 
in Switzerland, and become proficient in 
French and German, he was sent by General 

157 



158 THE MARl&CHALE 

Booth to assist the Marechale in France, and 
acted as her chief of staff until their marriage. 

He was a man of great courage, and 
received a medal from the French Presi- 
dent for saving Ufe from drowning. As a 
servant of God he would, one cannot but think, 
have made a splendid Huguenot or Covenan- 
ter. His heroic ideal was the persecuted 
Quaker whose blood he had in his veins. In 
the Salvation Army's early days of conflict he 
was the bravest of the brave. He was stoned 
and covered with mud in the streets of Geneva. 
He was pursued by a Parisian mob that howled 
"Down with Jesus Christ!" His life was at- 
tempted many times, and he was condemned 
to death by the Nihilists under the seal of the 
Paris headquarters; but he never went out of 
his way to avoid death or use carnal weapons. 

Mr. Booth-Clibborn has been specially used 
of God in removing the difficulties of those 
troubled with intellectual doubt and in open- 
ing the eyes of a large number who were in 
spiritual darkness. 

The Marechale was now obliged to leave the 
Training Home, where her vie apostolique 
among her beloved officers and cadets, whose 



THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 159 

every conflict and danger she shared, had often 
seemed to her like life in an earthly paradise. 
But whatever new duties and cares came to 
her in her little home in the Rue d' Allemagne, 
she never allowed them to interfere with her 
vocation. In the course of fourteen years God 
gave her G.ye sons and five daughters, among 
whom life was infinitely sweet to her, yet all 
her public activities were maintained, while 
her passion for souls burned with a clear and 
steady flame. 

Loyalty to Christ now assumed a new aspect, 
and the conditions of discipleship an added 
stringency. A great sentence in the Gospel — 
"Verily I say unto you, there is no man that 
hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or 
father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, 
for my sake, and the Gospel's, but he shall re- 
ceive an hundredfold now in this time, houses 
and brethren and sisters and mothers and chil- 
dren and lands, with persecutions, and in the 
world to come eternal life" — ^burned itself into 
the Marechale's soul, and she never doubted 
that she received her centuple just because she 
paid the price. 

When she went to any of the towns of 



160 THE MARECHALE 

France to undertake a difficult campaign, it 
was impossible for her to do her duty unless 
she fixed her whole mind and heart upon the 
work. Having to deal with the mass of sin 
concentrated in a large mixed audience such 
as she had to face in these towns, and knowing, 
as she used to say, that every person had a 
skeleton in the cupboard, she felt that she must 
become, as it were, the scapegoat to bear the 
sins of these people. There was a sense in 
which she had to be like Christ in this respect, 
and so co-operate and suffer with Him (Col. 
i. 24). She must go and set herself apart to 
lift up hands to God in favour of the city. She 
must say to every preoccupation, every earthly 
tie, "Stand thou there while I go yonder to 
pray." She must live for that town and that 
people for six weeks, or two or three months. 
She might do a certain kind of work without 
giving her life,, but it would not be of the 
apostolic kind. To get the hundredfold of 
which Christ spoke she must leave father and 
mother, home and child. In some very real 
way she must sacrifice and suffer. She had 
felt this from her childhood, and she now saw 
it more clearly than ever; there was always a 





THE MARECHALE 

{From a photograph by Fred. Boissonnas, Paris, circa 1890) 



[Page 160 



THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 161 

price to pay. The secret of success in such 
cases was the consciousness of a vocation and a 
passionate love too, and the personal dealing 
with the Christ of Calvary. 

How hard it became for the Marechale to 
accept this cross may be indicated by a touch- 
ing scene depicted by her secretary, Miss 
Gugelman, who is now one of the bravest sol- 
diers of salvation in India. 

" 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.' How 
clearly this was illustrated when, at a late hour 
one evening, just at the close of her month's 
meetings in Paris, the Marechale bent over her 
Uttle ones' cots to bid them good-bye before 
starting on her three-months' tour through 
France and Switzerland. Evangeline, the eld- 
est, had kept awake, for she knew that her 
mamma was going away. The little arms were 
flung round the warrior-mother's neck, when, 
raising her sweet tear-stained face, little Evan- 
gehne stammered, 'Maman, stay with me, or 
take me with you on your tournees/ Our 
leader's all too human tears filled her eyes ; she 
kissed the little pleader, and then wrapped her 
up in a blanket, and brought her into the study 
to see us off. It was painfully clear to us who 



162 THE MARECHALE 

were watching her, that the leaving of her little 
ones for the war's sake was a heavy cross to 
the Marechale. Thank God, she shirks it not. 
Suppressing her feelings, she went out into the 
cold and damp, and started her long all-night 
journey." 

That was in February 1894, and later in the 
same year she had two of the finest campaigns 
of her life — at Havre and Rouen. The turbu- 
lent beginning at Havre was graphically de- 
scribed by her friend the Princess MalzoiF, 
who accompanied the Marechale in order to 
have a taste of the vie apostolique. "There 
was a great tumult in the 'Lyre Havraise.' 
The Marechale had come to publish the word 
of love and salvation. An immense crowd 
forced itself into the hall, and who would have 
dared believe that they had all come simply to 
present the world with the most scandalous, 
the most vulgar and odious spectacle that one 
can imagine? When the Marechale rose with 
great dignity and calm . . . she could not make 
herself heard. Every word was interrupted; 
one could see that it was a prepared stroke. 
One might imagine oneself to be in an asylum. 
But she did not let herself be discouraged; she 



THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 163 

persevered; she walked straight into the midst 
of the infuriated crowd. She did not tame 
these wild beasts, but she came out victorious 
all the same. Tall, beautiful, calm, sustained 
by her divine conviction and with the strength 
of a great heart, she came back again and 
again — our admirable Marechale! ... In the 
midst of this infernal and ridiculous tumult a 
few elite souls felt a noble enthusiasm for this 
young woman who battled alone against a hos- 
tile and wicked crowd. They came to grasp 
her hand, to express their admiration for her 
and their shame for those who had broken the 
simplest laws of hospitality, poHteness and civ- 
ilisation. Blessed be our Marechale ; in her the 
whole Armee du Salut was personified that 
night in its strength, its faith, its persevering 
love." 

Tributes to "the Marechale under fire" were 
extorted from all the reporters. After two or 
three meetings the atmosphere was changing 
and the tide of battle turning, when tidings 
came from Paris, that Augustine, the Mare- 
chale's little son of two summers, was alarm- 
ingly ill. Then came an indescribable mental 
conflict, which ended in her deciding to remain 



164. THE MARECHALE 

at least another night and hope for better news 
in the morning. She called her officers for 
prayer, and that night spoke with a power and 
tenderness which held the vast audience as with 
a spell; after which she had Havre for six 
weeks in the hollow of her hand. 

Next morning she received a reassuring wire 
from home, and, sitting alone on the beach, she 
wrote a hymn that gives perfect expression to 
the thought of the Greater Love — a hymn that 
has endeared itself in France as much to Cath- 
olics as to Protestants. It begins: 

Qui quitte famille et terre 
Pour mon Nom, pour suivre mes pas; 
Qui quitte enfants, pere ou mere, 
Re9oit le centuple ici-bas. 

When this hymn was sung in the "Lyre 
Havraise" a night or two afterwards by one of 
the Marechale's young comrades, Mme. Jean- 
monod, who had a beautiful soprano voice, it 
was received with a burst of sympathetic ap- 
plause, and had to be sung over and over again, 
till the audience knew it. 

Then there was a great harvest of souls to 
reap. A letter written at the time gives an 



THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 165 

idea of the intensity of spirit with which the 
leader threw herself into the work. 

"Meeting superb ! Nothing of its kind since 
the days of Geneva and Nimes, and even bet- 
ter in a sense than that, as the infidels rush to 
hear me. Perfect order and people pleading 
to get in. In these first audiences it has been 
too risky and excitable to allow any to speak 
but me. They applaud everything, that is, 
when I have finished speaking, and I never felt 
more free and regardless of man's opinion. I 
am stronger with the rough element alone in 
my weakness, so much stronger as I throw my- 
self on them. Yes, I am filled with the life 
and power of God for this town. This hour 
may never come again. My soul is on the full 
stretch. ... Do you know what the * Centuple' 
is for me? That my children shall become 
apostles ! Oh, I claim that of God, and do you 
know there is an assurance in my heart." 

In addition to the nightly crowds at the 
Casino, the Marechale held afternoon meetings 
for women only, at which she spoke on such 
subjects as "The Role of Woman," "The 
Mother of Jesus," "The White Robe." Noth- 
ing impressed Havre more than the midnight 



166 THE MARECHALE 

suppers she gave to the filles perdues of the 
town, not a few of whom were constrained to 
abandon the life of sin. And so generous were 
the rich citizens in their offerings that at the 
close of the campaign the Marechale was at 
length able to realise one of her cherished ideas 
— ^the foundation of a Rescue Home in Paris, 

After Havre, the Marechale had a short 
breathing-space at home, and then Rouen had 
to be faced. Again the shadow of the Cross 
fell upon little hearts and lives. Victoire, who 
was nearly five, pleaded with upstretched arms, 
"Don't go, mother! stay with us!" {Ne pars 
pas, Maman! Reste avec nous!) Evange- 
line, who had just turned six, had learned the 
lesson of separation, and, throwing her arms 
around her mother, said, ''Maman, if you do go 
to Rouen, will some souls be saved that would 
not be saved if you did not go?" 

"Yes; most likely so." 

"Then go, Maman!'' 

And Maman went. 

While the good Catholic of Rouen was 
shocked, the man in the street was amused, at 
the idea of worshipping God in the Theatre 



THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 167 

Franpais instead of the stately cathedral, and 
between them they contrived to make the thing 
impossible. What, they asked, could be more 
grotesque than preaching and singing hymns 
on the stage? At the opening meeting the 
Marechale herself obtained a fairly good hear- 
ing, but a hostile element was present which 
every now and then convulsed the audience 
with laughter by some comical exclamation; 
and when one of her comrades attempted to 
close the meeting with prayer, the rout was 
complete. Prayer in a theatre was the limit, 
and next day the Marechale was informed by 
the Mayor that he must pacify the public by 
terminating these proceedings. 

The great Casino, at the corner of the square 
in which Joan of Arc was burned, was then 
secured, and the Marechale began to dehver 
a series of addresses on "The Holy Mother 
of Jesus," "Nineteenth Century Miracles," 
"Confession," "Restitution," "The Saints," 
"The Pater Noster," "My Credo," "The Al- 
tar," The crowds that filled the hall to over- 
flowing were amazed to find that these subjects 
were all dealt with quite unecclesiastically, and 
with such an exclusive application to the indi- 



168 THE MARECHALE 

vidual heart and life that sacerdotaUsm be- 
came, as it were, non-existent, while the sinner 
and the Saviour were made manifest and left 
face to face. The people who came with minds 
alert left with hearts melted and consciences 
aroused. Soon there were great numbers of 
souls seeking spiritual help, and the Marechale 
announced that she would meet the convicted 
and anxious in one of the rooms of the Casino. 
No fewer than four hundred sought private 
interviews in that place, which thus became a 
confessional of the simple, primitive order. 
Not by priestly absolution, but through per- 
sonal contact with the one High Priest and 
Mediator, was sin remitted and salvation won. 
So many Catholics were converted that the 
head of one of the seminaries thought it neces- 
sary to preach against the Armee du Salut, 
An influential abbe, on the other hand, said: 
"I cannot, of course, agree with the Salvation- 
ists, but I am absolutely convinced of their 
sincerity, and I am certain they are far nearer 
salvation than the majority of Catholics." The 
cure of the largest paroisse attended one day 
in his soutane, gave an offering for the mis- 
sion, and bought the publications at the door. 



THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 169 

When the Marechale was about to speak to 
women alone on the Holy Mother, two priests 
expressed their desire to be present, and she 
had them concealed behind a curtain. At the 
end they were deeply moved, and assured her 
they had not heard a single word with which 
they were not in heartiest agreement. Such 
was the deep spiritual impression made upon 
the town that a newspaper was published con- 
taining nothing but accounts of her meetings 
and the work going on in the Casino. 

During all her years in France the Mare- 
chale never posed as a Protestant and never 
attacked Cathohcism. Creeds, ceremonies, 
penances, pilgrimages — ^these things were to 
her neither here nor there. She always went 
for the real, and she found in Christ not only 
true divinity but perfect humanity. Her ser- 
mon on the Virgin melted thousands of Catho- 
lic hearts, and her fundamental doctrine of 
sacrifice never failed to evoke a response from 
the Latin races. She was an eager student — 
so far as the "apostolic life" permitted — of the 
writings of Catherine of Siena, Thomas a 
Kempis, Madame Guyon and Fenelon, claim- 



170 THE MARECHALE 

ing kinship with all who loved the Lord Jesus 
Christ in sincerity and truth. 

Thus she had great power over Catholics 
as well as Protestants and infidels. One of 
her most devoted officers, M. le Roux, had, 
after a brilliant career as a CathoUc student, 
completed his preparation for the priesthood 
and received the tonsure, when he came under 
her influence and found his life completely 
changed. And the following letter received 
from a lady-professor in Rouen indicates the 
kind of impression which was made on many 
Catholic minds. 

"Dear Marechale, I wish to do what I have 
not yet dared to do when face to face with 
you — that is, to express the pleasure which 
I have found in your charming Conferences. 
They have moved and troubled me to such an 
extent, have thrown such light in my heart and 
mind, that I ask myself what is going on 
within me. Your addresses, so simple and yet 
so high, so suited to your hearers, so consecu- 
tive, have influenced me more than all the beau- 
tiful sermons of the monks. You have made 
me understand that God asks something else 
from us than outward practices and empty 



THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 171 

ceremonial, and I feel that you have renewed 
a faith in me that had nearly disappeared. You 
have made me taste, thanks to your deep con- 
victions and the warmth of your speech, one 
of the purest joys I have ever known. ... Be 
blessed a thousand times, Marechale, for hav- 
ing revealed my religion to be under a new 
light, for having shaken this apathy which ren- 
dered me incapable of every generous impulse, 
for having made me more sensitive to the suf- 
ferings of others. Be blessed in your children, 
who one day I hope will reward you nobly for 
all your sacrifices. Be blessed in humanity, the 
great family which you have elected to Uve for 
and which is the object of your care." 

Does such a revival as this leave solid and 
lasting results? Let one case out of many be 
presented as evidence that it does. M. Matter 
was a distinguished engineer and an officer in 
the French army. Extracts from two of his 
letters tell what the Rouen campaign did for 
him. 

"Beloved Marechale, Three years ago to- 
night a poor man entered the Casino through 
what appeared mere chance. He was burdened 



172 THE MARECHALE 

with sorrow, keenly conscious of his sins, but 
never dreaming of asking the Armee du Salut 
— which did not even excite his curiosity — ^to 
help him, hardly believing any more in the 
possibility of salvation for him. God inspired 
you; the Holy Spirit made your words pene- 
trate even underneath the breastplate of sin 
which covered my poor heart. Two days after 
I was born to a new hf e. From that moment 
God has strengthened, protected and directed 
me. I seek to love Him with all my heart, and 
I treasure a deep and loving gratitude to you." 

And six years later: "I have made a pil- 
grimage at night in the deserted streets to the 
Casino where God found me and where you 
were His ambassador." 

This gentleman is now well known all over 
France for his work among criminals and 
drunkards, and his services have been recog- 
nised by the French government. He gets into 
personal touch with hundreds of convicts in 
order to speak to them of the love of God, and 
down in the Ardeche he has a Home for four 
hundred little waifs, mostly the children of 
criminals, whom he calls the Marechale's 



THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 173 

grandchildren, he himself being her spiritual 
son. 

The last time she visited him in Paris, they 
were engaged in eager and intimate talk, when 
he said, "Do you see that ivory pipe? I have 
engraved on it the day of my conversion at 
Rouen; but since that time I have never had 
any inclination to smoke it. And do you see 
that pile of letters? These are from my boys 
in prison. Let me read one of them to you." 
Then he read the words of a convict who spoke 
of prison walls Ughted up with the glory of 
Christ's presence. And he added, "Do you 
remember you said to me when I was in de- 
spair over my past life, *These hands, which 
have done so much evil, will bring blessing and 
salvation where I can never go.' Your words 
have literally come true." 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 

One night a little card was placed on the 
table d'hote of the Hotel Meurice, in the Rue 
de Rivoli, intimating to the guests that the 
Marechale would speak at an informal meeting 
in the salon after dinner. Among those who 
came to see and hear her was a little Russian 
lady with deep and thoughtful hazel eyes. She 
was the celebrated Princess Nancy (properly 
Anastasia) Malzoff of the Russian court. One 
of the Czarinas died in her arms. She was a 
friend of King Edward VII, and her brilliant 
wit made her a welcome figure in every court 
of Europe. She spoke eight languages. 

She was now well advanced in life, and 
thought she had known everybody worth 
knowing and seen everything worth seeing in 
the world. But that evening was the begin- 
ning of a new life of peace and joy such as 
she had never dreamed of. From the moment 
the Marechale opened her lips, she was f asci- 

177 



178 THE MARECHALE 

nated, first by the speaker, and then still more 
by the message. Next morning she came in 
her carriage to the Villette. The Marechale 
was scarcely well enough to receive her, but she 
would not take a "No." When she entered 
the Marechale's room, she threw herself by the 
bedside and exclaimed, "Oh! tell me, how did 
you get to know Him?" 

This was the commencement of a seven 
years' friendship, and during all that time she 
was never out of reach without writing the 
Marechale every second day. 

The Princess was a member of the orthodox 
Greek Church. Her mother had married her 
off at sixteen, and she had eleven children by 
the time she was twenty-eight. When she 
found that her husband had become unfaith- 
ful, she dismissed him with an emphatic "C'est 
fini!" and for more than a quarter of a century 
she had never seen him. 

The Marechale hstened with deep sympathy 
to the story of her life, and then said, "You 
must forgive him, if you would be forgiven." 

"Never, never!" 

"Yes, if you want Christ, forgive him. 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 179 

Never mind what he has done, you must for- 
give him." 

The Princess could not. A struggle went 
on in her mind for six weeks. She began to 
come to the meetings at the Rue Auber, but 
she had no peace. The Marechale opened the 
question again. 

"Come now, I want you to write and invite 
him to meet you at your hotel, to dine with 
him, and to forgive him." 

A terrible inner controversy ensued, and the 
Princess became ill over it. One can scarcely 
imagine what it all meant to her, and yet thou- 
sands have to go through the same. 

Calling one day, the Marechale found her 
in a cloud of cigarette smoke. 

"Princess, how dare you smoke like this?" 

"Well, I am surrounded by a thousand 
devils, blue, black and yeUow. You have been 
neglecting me." 

A ceaseless conflict was raging in her breast, 
and ere they parted that day she wrote a letter 
and said she would send it. 

The Marechale called again, and foimd that 
the letter had not been sent. Then the crisis 
came. 



180 THE MARECHALE 

"Princess, you are lost. If you do not for- 
give, your heavenly Father will not forgive 
you.'' 

"I cannot, I cannot." 

She was in agony of soul. 

"Princess," said the Marechale, "are you 
perfect? From the little I know of you I 
should think you have a very had temper." 

"It is true, it is true." 

"Your sins have not been his, but they are 
sins before God, and have caused suffering to 
others. If you want God to forgive your bad 
temper, you must forgive him." 

The Marechale prayed, and bade her look 
to the Cross and see how Christ forgave. Then 
she told her again what to do. 

"Darling, you are to invite him to your 
apartments; you are to have a sweet little din- 
ner for him and flowers on the table, and when 
he comes you are to kiss him." 

"But I cannot!" 

"Yes, you will; and remember it is no for- 
giveness unless you kiss him. Forgiveness 
means kissing. Forgive him, and I know peace 
will come." 

"Very well, I will, I wiUl" 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 181 

The Marechale chanced to be leaving Paris 
for a time, and said — 

"You will send me a wire when you have 
done it." 

The Princess invited her husband. He made 
a long night journey. She kissed him and for- 
gave him. Next day the Marechale received 
a wire which made her dance for joy. It ran: 
^'Tout s'est passe comme vous Vavez dit^ et la 
paix du Christ m'tnonde: Malzoff/' (All is 
done as you said, and the peace of Christ floods 
my soul.) 

Her husband died after a few months, and 
her thankfulness for what she had done was 
profound. 

The last years of her own life were beauti- 
ful. In a letter which she wrote to General 
Booth in regard to her friend's health she said: 
"I owe a great deal to the Marechale. She has 
given me a treasure greater than all the treas- 
ures of this world — she has given me a Kving 
Christ; she has put Him not near me, but in 
me, in my soul, and the gratitude I feel for 
that blessing is great." An article from her 
pen on the Army's work in Paris contains these 
words: "The Salle Auber is to me now a holy 



182 THE MARECHALE 

place. I feel the presence of Christ there — 
Christ who has personally become a living 
Saviour to me since the Marechale brought me 
to Him and committed me to His Divine 
arms." 

Hundreds of letters, the last of which was 
written in St. Petersburg on the day before 
her death, reveal an intensely ardent nature, 
and prove that the heart which truly loves 
never grows old. We translate a few extracts. 

"I will use all my moral forces to prove to 
you that our mutual affection has advanced 
me in the path of holiness which you opened 
to me the very first moments I heard you 
speak. God had pity upon me and sent you 
on my via dolorosa to open to me a new hori- 
zon, a new heaven. He carried my heart to 
you with an intensity of which I did not think 
myself capable." 

"I have found in you two beings equally 
precious to me — ^the first is a friend I love like 
a dearly beloved daughter; the second the 
Marechale of my Salvation, whose work, voca- 
tion and power I admire — ^that moral power 
which you only in the whole world exercise 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 183 

over me. If I had known you earlier, you 
would have made a saint of me." 

"Not any affection in the world, not even 
my children's, can replace yours for me. What 
does it matter though everybody loves me if 
you do not?" 

"I know that it is because I have not yet 
renoimced my *self,' my ^moif that your ab- 
sence makes me suffer, but I cannot help it — 
it is beyond my power. I know also that the 
day my 'self will be chased away — ^which is 
doubtful — I shall love no one, for to love one 
must be a self, one must have one's own heart." 

"I doubt if there are any others who bear 
you such a deep, complete, living, warm and 
luminous affection. Not that you do not de- 
serve it, but all natures are not alike, and you 
know the fault of mine. I cannot love by 
halves." 

" 'Love wisely,' some one advises. That 
word *wise' hurts me. I do not want to be wise 
in my love for you. I prefer to love madly, 
and that is what I do, and you feel it, don't 
you? Wisdom to the devil when it is a ques- 
tion of the heart." 

"I cannot believe that He must detach us 



184. THE MARECHALE 

from everything to attach us to Himself — ^that 
would make me very sad. On the contrary I 
feel that it is only human love, disinterested 
love, but deep and living, which can make us 
understand Divine love. It is only through 
human experience that we can appreciate His 
great. His mighty. His eternal love for us. 
All the life of Jesus is filled with that palpable 
love for His creatures, and that is why He is 
so near to us. Let me therefore love you with- 
out detachment, and the more I love you the 
more I will love Him." 

One of her letters is peculiarly interesting: 
"I wiU see the Emperor in these days, and I 
will seek strength to speak to him. You see, 
my darhng, speaking is not enough, one must 
in such a case pour out one's soul and feel that 
a superior force guides one and speaks for 
one." 

It turned out as she hoped. One night she 
was at the Palace in St. Petersburg. After 
dinner the Czar came and seated himself be- 
side her. Soon they were deep in intimate con- 
versation. She began telling him what her 
new-found friend in Paris had done for her. 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 185 

She talked wisely as he listened attentively. 
At length he said — 

"But, Nancy, you have always been good, 
always right." 

"No," she answered; "till now I have never 
known the Christ. She has made Him real to 
me, brought Him near to me, and He has 
become what He never was before — ^my per- 
sonal Friend." 



THE BURNING QUESTION 



CHAPTER X 

THE BUENING QUESTION 

It was the often expressed wish of Mrs. 
Josephme Butler that the Marechale might be 
able to join her crusade against the infamous 
White Slave Traffic. In one of her earliest 
letters to her friend she said: "Dearest 
Catherine, the wicked party, as you know, have 
triumphed in the elections in Switzerland, and 
the Geneva government has passed that evil 
Law which our friends were trying to stop. 
. . . How nice it would be if you and I could 
stand up together in Geneva, and denounce 
their wickedness and proclaim the Saviour. 
I should love to do so." At a later time she 
wrote of her young friend, "Oh, I sometimes 
think if she were in the work of our Federa- 
tion, what a harvest she might bring us in, or 
rather bring in for God!" 

The Marechale regarded the wish of that 
saintly and chivalrous woman as involving a 

189 



190 THE MARECHALE 

kind of sacred trust. Her own heart was 
early and deeply troubled by the darker 
aspects of our modern civilisation. When she 
and her two brave comrades, Florence Soper 
and Adelaide Cox, took their first flat in Paris, 
they were shocked to learn that they had as 
their nearest neighbours — above and beneath, 
to the right and to the left — families uncon- 
secrated by any marriage tie ; and in the course 
of their ordinary work they found themselves 
hourly confronted by all the devils of vice. 
The lurid facts, of which most Christians, hap- 
pily for their own peace of mind, know little 
or nothing, were burned into the souls of these 
noble women, each of whom dedicated herself 
to a battle a outrance against this most appall- 
ing form of evil. And have they not faith- 
fully kept their vow? Are there any living 
Englishwomen who have done so much to pro- 
tect our innocent children and raise our fallen 
sisters as these three, who first toiled and suf- 
fered and prayed together thirty years ago in 
the Villette of Paris? 

In redeeming her pledge, the Marechale not 
only gave midnight suppers to the files 
dechues of the great cities in which she eon- 



THE BURNING QUESTION 191 

ducted her campaigns, not only founded Res- 
cue Homes in Paris, Nimes, Lyons and Brus- 
sels, but endeavoured to make the problem of 
purity a national question, to be dealt with 
in a statesmanlike manner by every patriotic 
citizen. 

She frequently addressed great meetings of 
the men of Paris and other cities on this sub- 
ject, making irresistible appeals to the heart 
and conscience. It was astonishing how she 
carried the most critical audiences along with 
her, though now and then an indignant hearer 
would leap to his feet and dash out of the hall 
or theatre in which her meeting was held. 

She steadily refused to believe that nothing 
could be done for the morale of Frenchmen, 
and her faith in the innate chivalry of the peo- 
ple was amply justified. The respect with 
which she was heard was a tribute not only to 
the personal magnetism of a consecrated life, 
but to the Christian ideal of chastity. She was 
often told by journalists that any one else, man 
or woman, daring to utter half the home truths 
to which she gave expression would have been 
hissed out of the town. Explain it as one 



192 THE MARECHALE 

will, when she pleaded the sacred cause of 
womanhood, men applauded to their own hurt. 
"Gentlemen," she would exclaim, "I am not 
French, but I love your nation. I have made 
your comitry mine, and I realise what France 
might be but for the worm which gnaws at the 
root of your national life. It makes me shud- 
der to think — it makes me literally sick to see 
— ^how many thousands of my sisters, and your 
sisters, in your beautiful city are ministers of 
vice. So many, your policemen tell me, under 
twenty, so many under seventeen, so many 
under fifteen, and there are even those known 
to the police who are not in their teens. Gen- 
tlemen, they do not sin alone, for we are all 
solidaires. They are like your own girls, your 
wives, your sweet little daughters. They have 
hearts, they have brains, they are inteUigent, 
they would make beautiful mothers, our com- 
rades in life's journey, helping us and sharing 
our burdens. And, alas, what have you made 
of them? Any nation which can look at that 
going on in its cities day by day and night by 
night, without a word, without a protest — 
which can see this splendid asset, woman, who 
should bear its sons and daughters, sacrificed 



THE BURNING QUESTION 193 

and sold to vice, disease, and early death, — 
that nation is on the decline. Do not tell me 
that a man worthy of the name can be silent 
in face of these stupendous facts. Such a man 
is not a Frenchman. 

"I am told that things have always been so, 
and will always be so. I hear it said on every 
hand that this vice is a necessity. That some 
women — that the daughters of the poor — 
should be sacrificed is regarded as inevitable. 
Well, then, gentlemen, as you say it is for the 
public utility, follow your reasoning to its own 
logical conclusion, be just to these poor crea- 
tures; do not despise them, do not call them 
lost, fallen, prostitutes ; be honest and acknowl- 
edge them; allow them to stand at least on the 
same level as our soldiers who sacrifice them- 
selves for their country. Far from being 
ashamed of them, honour them for their ser- 
vice to our sons and our nation. 

"But you say 'it is only une fille/ and one of 
your senators has publicly said that 'we are 
come to a fine pass if an honest man cannot 
buy himself une bonne fortune/ Only a fille! 
Your mothers were once only filles^ your wives 



194 THE MARECHALE 

were only filles^ and what are your own daugh- 
ters? Wherein lies the difference? 

"An honest man! I am not a nun; I am not 
a man-hater stalking through the world. I 
revere man. He is half a god. Look at his 
works in every domain — the king of creation, 
given that wonderful command to subdue and 
rule, having everything imder his feet. When 
he rises to his destiny, and becomes a co-worker 
with God, and puts his life and example — that 
wonderful miracle called influence — on the side 
of righteousness, he rises to the sublime. The 
sima of happiness, of pure joy and peace, that 
one good man can bring to the little group at 
home, and then to the community, to the city, 
to the world, cannot be estimated. And the 
sum of misery, the curse, the bhght that one 
man can bring to a woman, to children, to 
every one he touches — that, too, cannot be esti- 
mated. An honest man! He does not even 
stop where the cows and horses do. He goes 
a thousand miles beneath them! And yet the 
indulgence of the passions is no more a neces- 
sity than the drinking of alcohol is a necessity 
for an infant of a year old. It is society that 
awakens those evil desires, and they unfold 



THE BURNING QUESTION 195 

themselves under the influence of a baneful 
education. 

"Gentlemen, you say that a bad woman is 
worse than a bad man. Have you ever re- 
flected that the wrongs done to her are far 
deeper? Have you realised that her make-up 
is a thousand times more dehcate and complex 
than yours, and that as a consequence this sin 
makes shorter work of her? Her despair is 
blacker and she is reckless. You take from 
her the hope of ever having a little home of 
her own, of ever having a real husband, of 
ever hearing herself called mother. You have 
done that before she can realise what you have 
done. She does not wait, does not estimate. 
The realisation comes to her later on in Ufe. 
And when it comes, is it any wonder that she 
flies to drink and becomes a demon? Would 
not I? Would not you? 

"Say all that you please against woman. 
Reckon up the sijis on your side and on hers. 
Still your page is black as ink compared with 
hers. Think of the generous, the absolute, the 
totally blind ways she loves. 

'Woman's heart runs down to love 
As rivers run to seas.* 



196 THE MARECHALE 

"You have your life, your work, your amuse- 
ments ; but love is her whole existence. She is 
created in that way. That makes your sin in 
deceiving a trusting heart infinitely greater. 

"You may go and have a good marriage 
afterwards, and be proud of your charming 
wife's sweet looks, but does not the vision of 
another, a pale face sometimes flit across your 
mind? And when you look at your little cot, 
do you not see another baby face — another 
little life you have never owned, of which you 
are the author, and which is equally yours be- 
fore God? A woman's heart has been broken, 
and there will be retribution." 

While the Marechale stood alone, pleading 
as a woman the cause of woman, her audiences 
of educated Frenchmen were sometimes so 
deeply stirred and convicted that they would 
rock and sob under the power of emotion; 
and when they rose at the end to sing a hymn 
that she wrote as a young girl — a hymn which 
has been translated into many languages — 

Ote tous mes peches! 
Ote tous mes peches! 
Agneau de Dieu, je viens a toi, 
Ote tous mes peches. 



THE BURNING QUESTION 197 

the words and music would sweep over the 
audience like a wave, sending many away with 
consciences tortured and faces bathed in tears. 

One morning, after such a meeting, there 
was a ring at the Marechale's door, and a lady 
was ushered into her presence. Coming for- 
ward without a word, she took the Marechale's 
face between her hands, and warmly embraced 
her in the French fashion by kissing both her 
cheeks. The Marechale inquired what was the 
meaning of this sweet affection. 

"Oh!" said the stranger, "you have restored 
to me my husband. He was listening to you 
last night, and when he came home he fell at 
my feet and begged me to pardon him, vowing 
that he would never again be untrue to me." 

That was but one of the many fruits of these 
addresses. 

Sometimes the Marechale would read to elite 
audiences a letter which a man of high social 
standing wrote to a charming young girl whom 
he ought to have made his wife. Having met 
her at Carnival, he awoke in her heart an ador- 
ing love, deceived her with a promise of mar- 
riage, put a ring on her finger, and after three 



198 THE MARECHALE 

years abandoned her and her baby boy. The 
Marechale took the letter to an eminent jurist 
and senator, who confessed that for cold- 
blooded cruelty he had never seen anything to 
equal it; but he sorrowfully added — such are 
the laws of Christian lands — that nothing 
could be done to right the wrong. The letter 
ran as follows — 

"Little Marie^ 

"Once agaii I must ask pardon for all the 
harm I have done you. I hope, however, that 
you will be strong in trouble, stronger than you 
have been up to the present. This will be a 
very great consolation to me. I owe many 
thanks for the resolutions that the good little 
Marie made yesterday, in spite of her heart 
and all her feelings. Believe that I shall never 
forget it, and that it cost me much before de- 
ciding to break your ideal — but, as I told you, I 
prefer to be sincere. As long as my heart was 
free from other passion I always considered 
you as the best friend I possessed. If I was 
not completely happy, it was that living with- 
out love was not to live — ^but you, poor little 
Marie, you suffered! 



THE BURNING QUESTION 199 

"You are worth a hundred times more than 
I, and precisely on account of that we could 
not understand each other. You who are so 
good — too good — permeated with the most del- 
icate sentiments, you could not conquer an 
ambitious man, for I am very ambitious. 

"Whilst you dreamed of a simple, quiet Hfe 
with me, you must imderstand that violent pas- 
sions, riches, and a luxurious life are for me 
essential. In a word, our ideals are completely 
different, and it is a divorce of souls which I 
have accomplished in leaving you. Fate made 
us meet, and fate separates us. Don't have 
any ill-feeling towards me. My dream now is 
to create for myself quite a new life made up 
of goodness, of love, and above all faithfulness 
in a serious affection. 

"I sacrifice you, it is true, but if it were 
otherwise, think of the torture you would have 
inflicted on me. Is it not better to separate, 
each of us keeping a good memory of what 
made our union? Think also how my life is 
insupportable in this muddle now that I love 
truly. 

"You are good, Marie; be courageous now. 
The sacrifice that I ask of you is enormous, I 



200 THE MARECHALE 

know, but do it for love of me, and I will be 
eternally obliged to you. 

"You will put all your tenderness in the 
little Gustave, whom I shall never forget, and 
above all remember that he who loves well 
chastises well. Au revoir — au revoir! 

"Once again pardon me, and don't suffer 
too much by your exile. My only hope is that 
Gustave will recompense you largely for all 
the suffering you have endured, so little mer- 
ited during these long years. 
"I remain, 

"Your devoted ." 

Marie was human, and when the marriage 
day drew near there was a fierce flaming-up of 
resentment in her young heart. She thought 
of making a scene at the church and spoiling 
the bridegroom's joy. Her brother fanned her 
burning sense of wrong, and promised to back 
her up if she would seek revenge. But the 
Marechale pleaded with her, the love of the 
Crucified constrained her, and on the morning 
of the wedding she wrote the following pa- 
thetic little note: "He is to be married to-day. 
The wedding bells are ringing. ... It is all 



THE BURNING QUESTION 201 

over, dear Mareehale, and I am on my knees 
in my little room. All is well; the peace of 
Christ is in my heart, and I have the victory." 
This is no romance, but a bit of real life. 
Which of us would have done as little Marie 
did? She did not know it, but she was worthy 
that morning of the ministry of angels — the 
shining ones who have never sinned and never 
suffered. 

Sometimes the Mareehale would tell her 
audience a story to prove what wells of love 
there still are in the hearts of the most aban- 
doned. During a three months' campaign at 
Lyons, resulting in one of the most remark- 
able revivals in which she ever took part, she 
was giving a midnight supper. Her officers 
had gone to the most notorious houses and left 
a card containing the words : "A lady who is 
devoted to the cause of women desires to speak 
to them on subjects which deeply interest them, 

in Hall, at twelve to-night. Supper, 

music and singing." 

' The city had been moved, and the rich dem- 
onstrated their sympathy with this effort. 
Having had frequent experiences of the risks 



202 THE MARECHALE 

attending midnight gatherings, the Marechale 
enlisted the interest of the poHce, who on this 
occasion gave her all possible assistance. 

Late in the evening the table was covered 
with damask cloths and adorned with flowers. 
A supper of roast beef, vegetables, fruit and 
black coiFee was prepared. Towards midnight 
the piano began to be played, that those who 
entered the hall might be welcomed with cheer- 
ful music. 

Some girls came in laughing, and quickly 
went out again, evidently thinking there must 
be some deception. They did not believe that 
banquets were spread for nothing. Sometimes 
it was very difficult to convince them that the 
thing was not a farce. 

Presently a horrible old hag appeared — it 
would be difficult to imagine a more ugly, re- 
pulsive woman. Coming up to the Marechale 
she said — 

"You are the Holy Virgin. I know it. Oui, 
vous etes la Sainte Vierge, je le sais/' 

The Marechale did not know what to say, so 
much was she taken aback. 

"You are the Holy Virgin," the old woman 
repeated. 



THE BURNING QUESTION 203 

"Come along and have a talk with me," said 
the Marechale, "and take supper. I am de- 
lighted to see you." 

The woman laughed. "No, no, no, it isn't 
me that you want — Ce n'est pas mot qu'il vous 
fautr 

"Yes, it is you. I am happy, believe me I 
am so happy, to see you. It is you whom I 
want. Do sit down." 

At last, with great difficulty, she was per- 
suaded to be seated. But she stayed only a 
minute. The Marechale turned to speak to 
somebody, and the old woman darted out of 
the hall. She was gone like a flash. 

"We won't see her again, Marechale," said 
one of the officers. 

The Marechale began to blame herself. 
Why did she not inspire the poor creature with 
confidence? Why could one not make her feel 
at rest? Why had she run away? She had 
seemed to suspect something. It was a sore 
disappointment. 

After some waiting, the girls began to come, 
and the tables filled up, but every time the 
door opened the Marechale turned her eye 
towards it in the hope of seeing her old woman 



204 THE MARECHALE 

return. A gloom had been east over her spirit 
because that woman had gone out, not beUev- 
ing that she was welcome, thinking she was 
too old and too ugly. 

The beautiful grace, "Nous Te benissons," 
was sung, prayer was offered, and sweet music 
filled the air while the plates were handed 
round. Some of the guests were pretty and 
some ugly, some young and some old, some 
clad in rags and some dressed in the height 
of fashion. Some poor famished creatures 
asked for a plate of meat four or five times, 
while others, having already supped, merely 
touched a little fruit with their dainty fingers 
and sipped a cup of black coffee. 

The supper was nearly ended, and the Mare- 
chale was preparing to speak, when the door 
burst open, and in came our old woman, with 
a pretty young girl, fair as a lily, on one arm, 
and a dark one, equally young and beautiful, 
on the other. Up she came to the "Holy Vir- 
gin," with her dear old face radiant. 

"Voila! I have gone and found them. It's 
these that you want ! For me it is too late, but 
show them the other side of the medal.'* 

3[he Marechale could not speak. Her eyes 



THE BURNING QUESTION 205 

filled with tears. The words cut her through. 
The woman did not know what an act she had 
done, nor what an unforgettable phrase — le 
revers de la medaille — she had used. 

"I have spent a long time in seeking them," 
she said, "I am pleased — Je suis contente" 

"And I, too, am happy," said the Marechale, 
"but especially because you have come." 

"Moi! for me it is finished. For me it is 
too late. But these — they are young, they are 
pretty, they have life before them. It is these 
that you want!" 

The three sat down, the Marechale taking 
the old woman next to her. And she never 
served a cup of coffee with such pleasure in 
her Hf e. 

In after years she would sometimes tell the 
story of that old woman on a Sunday morning 
to an English congregation, and then ask the 
searching question, "Which of you has ever 
spent two hours day or night seeking for a 
lost soul as she did?" 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



CHAPTER XI 

THE PEODIGAL SON 

Baeon X, the eldest son of the Baron of 
that name, was born at Bordeaux, and brought 
up in a family of strict Catholic traditions. 
He studied at the College de Tivoli and the 
Lycee, but he cared for little except sport and 
pleasure. After he had wasted much of his 
father's substance in riotous living, he was in- 
formed that his allowance would be entirely cut 
off unless he went abroad for a time. Leaving 
home in disgrace, he sailed for New York, and 
was beginning to taste the bitterness of exile, 
when, chancing one day to enter a big restau- 
rant, he was astonished to meet his cousin, the 
Viscount of X., who, having inherited a for- 
tune of two million francs, was making haste 
to squander it. Falling upon each other's 
necks, they at once became companions in 
pleasure. Giving themselves up to all kinds 
of insanity, they spent immense sums in a few 
months. 

209 



210 THE MARECHALE 

Baron X was afraid to give himself a single 
moment of reflection on the enormity of his 
errors. He was inwardly miserable, and found 
that everybody else who was pursuing pleasure 
was as unhappy as himself. One night, at a 
dance in Montreal, he said to the queen of the 
ball, admired by everybody for her beauty and 
charm — 

"Would that I could find out how to enjoy 
myself again!" 

She answered, "If I seem to be gay, I have 
no reason for being so. Oh, how I suffer!" 

The young man felt that existence became 
more and more mechanical, the days succeed- 
ing one another in an endless monotony of un- 
satisfying amusements. He seemed to be 
living in a bad dream. 

After a while he returned to France, and 
one evening he was sitting, sad at heart, on 
the balcony of the Cafe de la Paix^ wondering 
to what place of pleasure he should turn his 
steps, when some Salvationist girls came to 
offer their journal to the customers. They 
were greeted with the usual pleasantries. 
Baron X asked the waiter if he knew who these 
people were. 



THE PRODIGAL SON 211 

"Oh, yes, Monsieur, they are the Salutistes, 
and if you want to have a good laugh, you have 
only to go to the Rue Auber, which is quite near 
by; they have a hall there where you could 
spend a good evening." 

His curiosity awakened. Baron X went to 
the place indicated, taking a fille de joie with 
him. The fair-haired young man and his com- 
panion sat at the bottom of the hall laughing. 
That evening there were "testimonies," which 
somehow arrested Baron X's attention. He 
could not help asking himself how these young 
people seemed so happy. Then a young officer 
read the words, "The wages of sin is death, but 
the free gift of God is eternal life through 
Christ Jesus our Lord," and delivered an ad- 
dress which was not correct in language, but 
extremely incisive. Baron X said to himself, 
"He knows my history, and speaks to me." As 
he went out, he bought some pubHcations which 
were exposed for sale at the door, and spent the 
night in reading them. He came next evening 
alone, and a great spiritual conflict began. He 
continued to come, and one night remained be- 
hind, being in an agony of soul. Sobbing 
aloud, he confessed that he had led a wild and 



212 THE MARECHALE 

wicked life, dishonoured his name, and broken 
his mother's heart. At one o'clock in the morn- 
ing he gave himself to God. 

The Marechale saw that he was afraid of 
himself in Paris, and opened her doors to him. 
For six months he lived partly at her house and 
partly at the headquarters in the Rue Auber. 
She soon came to know him through and 
through, and was struck by his simplicity and 
absolute sincerity. He had broken completely 
with the past, and never had one arriere pensee. 
He was ready for any sacrifice and for the 
humblest service. 

One day a pohce agent came to tell the 
Marechale that she had somebody living in her 
house and wearing the uniform of the Armee 
de Salut, who was passing himself off as the 
son of Baron X. She called Baron X, and, 
while the two men stared at each other, said, 
^'This is the son of Baron X." The official 
apologised and withdrew. 

Baron X had written to tell his parents of 
his conversion, but received no answer. After 
six months the Marechale had to begin a 
tournee at Bordeaux, and told Baron X that 
she would seize the opportunity to go and visit 



THE PRODIGAL SON 213 

his parents. He was overjoyed. He hoped 
for much, and said he would pray. 

When the Marechale, clad in uniform, drew 
near to the gates of the Baron's chateau, a 
complete stranger stopped her and exclaimed, 
"My poor child, what are you going to do in 
that house?" She only smiled and walked on, 
but the question came back to her mind after- 
wards. 

Ringing the bell, she was shown into a lux- 
urious room, and presently the Baron, the Bar- 
oness, and their daughter appeared. She was 
received as stiffly as if she had been the repre- 
sentative of the Queen, and found it hard to 
begin. Making an effort, she said they had 
probably learned from their son that a wonder- 
ful change had taken place in his life. She 
was happy to be able to confirm it. For six 
months she and her officers had witnessed his 
life, and had noticed nothing in word or look or 
act inconsistent with this marvellous change. 

There was no answer. The parents and 
daughter simply stared at their visitor. She 
continued — 

"I know that his life has been bad, but I 



214 THE MARECHALE 

thought that you would be glad to hear of his 
conversion." 

Then the Baroness could no longer contain 
herself. A torrent of words fell from her hps. 
She depicted the scandalous hfe of her son, 
who had been a real prodigal in every sense of 
the word, gambling away their wealth, bring- 
ing his mistress into their house, and disgrac- 
ing their name. 

'*But," said the Marechale, "that was before 
his change. Do not bring up what he once 
was. Think of what he is now. He has been 
living among my children, and I can trust him 
to go in and out with them. I know some- 
thing of real conversions, and I think I can 
judge. I assure you that he has become a new 
man, with new desires, new aspirations, a new 
nature. 

These assurances only led to another realistic 
description of his sins. 

*'But," pleaded the Marechale, "that was 
when he was Saul; now he is Paul." 

They stared and did not comprehend the 
meaning of her words. 

"Let him come back to the Catholic Church," 
said the Baron. That his son should profess 



THE PRODIGAL SOX 215 

to have been saved outside the holy Mother 
Church was evidently a last blow to his pride. 

"That is surely a secondary matter/' said 
the Marechale. ''Considering what a sinner 
he has been, you should not mind by whom the 
change has come. He has been converted in 
the Armee du Saint, but there is only one God 
and one Saviour. Cathohc and Protestant are 
alike if they have no hfe." 

But the Baroness drew herself up in her 
beautiful robe, and said — 

"Let him come back to the Catholic Chiu-ch, 
or he will never receive another sou from us." 

The Marechale saw that it was time to end 
the interview. 

"Very well, Baroness.*' she said, rising, "I 
will be your son's mother. I will buy your son 
clothes and boots." 

With that she left their house disappointed 
and weary, having spent hoiu-s under their 
roof pleading their son's cause, but they had 
never offered her so much as a cup of tea. 

On her return to Paris, she called Baron X. 
His face fell when she began to speak. She 
bade him be brave, described to him her inter- 
view with his people, and ended by sa^^g, "I 



216 THE MARECHALE 

will be a mother to you, and you shall never 
lack for anything." 

He worked on with her in Paris for some 
months, and then he received a telegram, 
"Come quickly, father dying." The Mare- 
chale rushed him off, and he afterwards gave 
her an account of his eventful journey. 

When he got home, he found the house 
silent, every sound muffled without and within. 

"Am I too late?" he asked. 

"No, hush ! He has been asking for you all 
the time. Come quickly." 

Upstairs he went to his father's room. En- 
tering, he saw two thin white hands on the 
coverlet, and heard a voice — 

"Is it my son?" 

"Yes, father!" 

With one bound he was at the bed-side, and 
fell on his knees. With breath coming thick 
and fast, his father said faintly — 

"Oh, my son, your religion is better than 
mine. Forgive your old father for not forgiv- 
ing you." 

Holding his hand, his son spoke to him of 
the Saviour, and sang to him some of the 
choruses he had learned in the Army. Father 



THE PRODIGAL SON 217 

and son were a thousand miles away from 
Catholicism and Protestantism. They were 
simply in the presence of the Saviour. With 
words of salvation in his ears, and filial arms 
around him, the old Baron passed away. 

Himself now Baron X, he came into his for- 
tune. However bad an eldest son has been, he 
cannot, by French law, be disinherited. 

For the next four years Baron X was an 
officer in the Armee du Salut, In Paris and 
Nimes, England and Belgium he worked with 
ardour for the salvation of souls. He was with 
the Marechale in her Brussels campaign.^ 

He married Mile. Babut, the daughter of 
the well-known pastor in Nimes. As a girl she 
had been brilliantly clever, but very wilful, 
closing her heart to all who sought to influence 
her for good. When the Marechale came to 
Nimes she went, like everybody else, to the 
meetings, taking with her girl friends whom 
she excited to mock and laugh. But a strange 
power seized her. In vain she tried to escape 
by ridiculing what she heard. "One evening," 
to use her own words, "the Marechale — di- 
rected by God — turned her eyes full on me and 

^ Described in chap. xiii. 



218 THE MARECHALE 

said, 'Young woman, you have not the right 
to waste your life/ Clear, pointed, cutting 
like a sword, this truth penetrated me, and 
with it the conviction, *I ought to yield to God 
here and now.' " Three months later she was 
in the Training Home in Paris. 

The Baron X and his wife afterwards be- 
came missionaries in Madagascar. They gave 
themselves heart and soul to the work. When 
Baron X's health began to fail, they returned 
home, and he continued to labour for Christ 
as long as he had any strength left. His end 
came in 1911. Pastor Babut said he had been 
attending death-beds for fifty years, but had 
never seen anything so beautiful as the Baron's 
latter end. 

"Courage," said some one to the dying man. 

"Courage? I do not need it when heaven is 
open to me." 

"Do you see the Lord Jesus near you?" 

"But I am with Him!" 

"God has used you to work for Him." 

"All I have done counts for nothing, only 
the immense grace and love of God remain." 



so GREAT FAITH 



CHAPTER XII 

so GREAT FAITH 

It was mid-winter, and the ground was cov- 
ered with snow. There was no little anxiety 
at the Villette. Forty hungry mouths had to 
be filled at the Ecole Militaire, and there was 
nothing for dinner. The simple fact was that 
the cash-box was empty, and it was difficult 
not to have a heavy heart. But the maxim of 
a Salutiste is "Keep believing!" God had 
never forsaken the Marechale when she trusted 
in Him. Depression and melancholy she re- 
garded as lack of faith. She bade her secre- 
tary call a fiacre. When they got in, the of- 
ficer said — 

*'You have the fare, Marechale?" 

"No!" 

''But " 

"The Lord have mercy upon you! Where 
is your faith? Get down on your knees and 
pray!" 

The officer instantly obeyed. They both 

221 



222 THE MARECHALE 

prayed — it was real prayer — and their hearts 
became Kghter. 

The fiacre drew up at the gate of a beautiful 
house in the Champs Elysees. It had to be 
kept waiting, for there was no money to pay 
the cocker. 

The Marechale was ushered into a luxurious 
apartment, and was soon talking with a Rus- 
sian Countess about her soul. They had never 
met before, but they found common ground. 

"I too," said the Countess, "adore the Christ! 
Come and see. . . . Look, the Christ!" 

They stood before a beautiful picture of the 
thorn-crowned Redeemer. 

"I adore Him!" she repeated. 

"But it is one thing," said the Marechale, 
"to adore Him here in these charming sur- 
roundings, and another thing to adore Him 
amidst the filth, the immorality and the misery 
of the Villette, where I live night and day 
among the poor and the dying, and where I 
have devoted young comrades who have left 
comfortable homes and bright prospects, and 
are now labouring for Christ and receiving 
nothing for it. What is your adoring Christ 
compared with theirs?" 



so GREAT FAITH 223 

The Countess was silent, and evidently felt 
bad. She had suddenly received a new ray 
of light upon the adoration of Jesus, and, 
realising that deeds are better than words, she 
left the room for a minute, to return with an 
offering of 500 francs. 

It was by such gifts that the Army was 
maintained on the Continent. The Marechale, 
it is somewhat strange to discover, was not 
only the apostle but the financier of the Armee 
du Salut in France. Others, of course, could 
administer the funds, but on her fell the bur- 
den of replenishing the exchequer. As years 
passed and the work extended, the task became 
more and more heavy. Officers had to be sup- 
ported, the rent of houses and halls paid, the 
Training Home, the Rescue Homes, the Or- 
phanages, the Homes of Rest maintained, and 
to meet all this outlay the Marechale toiled, 
travelled, and wrote countless letters. Those 
who adored the Christ sent her their gifts from 
many lands. 

While there were many generous support- 
ers of the Army in France and Switzerland, 
the largest contributions came from the home- 
country. We have noted that the General did 



224 THE MARECHALE 

not like to see Catherine's hand-writing, be- 
cause he thought of her weak spine. Yet in 
one day she and her secretary would some- 
times write over a hundred letters with their 
own hands, which at the end were too cramped 
to go on with more. Experience had taught 
her the value of a personal application. Many 
a well-wisher who would have given £5 in re- 
sponse to a typewritten letter, did much better 
on receiving a warm appeal in the leader's own 
handwriting. She even made it a rule to write 
receipts herself. 

Lean months tested the spirit of the Train- 
ing Home. Though there was nothing to eat 
but a plate of cabbage-soup and a potato, the 
cadets never murmured. '^C'est la vie aposto- 
lique" they cheerfully said one to another. 
And it was easy to bear any hardship when 
their leader shared it with them. One who was 
an officer with her for years wrote: "In all 
things she was our example. If you wished 
to incur her displeasure, you had but to give 
her something to eat which the workers did 
not have. As she was in delicate health, some- 
times those around her would try to get a 
little luxury to tempt her appetite or strength- 



so GREAT FAITH 225 

en her. They would be met with the answer: 
'Whatever is this? It is not for me, I hope, 
because, though it is very good of you, I did 
not want it, and will not have anything of the 
sort.' Then she would share it all round." 

Whenever it became known that the ex- 
chequer was almost empty, the officers and 
cadets knew that this was a call to prayer. 
On one occasion the rents of the Rue Auber 
and Quai de Valmy halls were due; there was 
nothing to meet them ; and there were but three 
days of grace. These were days of agony. 
All the officers who had anything to spare 
gave it. The children in the orphanage gave 
three francs and ten centimes. But when the 
best had been done, not a tithe of the necessary 
3000 francs was in hand. 

Everybody met for prayer. The Marechale 
spoke on the words, "Though the fig-tree shall 
not blossom, neither shaU fruit be in the vines 
• . . the flock shall be cut off from the fold, 
and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet 
will I rejoice in the Lord." She rang the 
changes on that "rejoice," asking, "Are we 
there?'' Yes, they were all there — anxious for 



226 THE MARECHALE 

nothing, but in everything by prayer with 
thanksgiving teUing God their needs. 

At such times the leader of the little band 
felt that God had to take care of His name. 
His honour ; He had to send what was required. 
Who will call such a faith in question? Did 
not the German people say of Luther, "Look, 
there is the man who gets from God whatever 
he asks?" When the Marechale was travel- 
ling with her secretary in a third-class carriage 
in the West of France, the poor people got in 
with their baskets of vegetables, and one of 
them said in a loud whisper, "Take care what 
you say; these people when they pray get from 
God all they want." 

To return. On the morning of the last day 
of grace the Marechale received a letter from 
Scotland containing a draft for £100, a "God 
bless you," and nothing more. She never knew 
what kind human heart had been moved to send 
the letter. But she never doubted that God 
had sent it. 

Such occurrences were not solitary. Here is 
the testimony of M. Grand jean, who was for 
years one of the Marechale's best officers. "I 
think with gratitude to God of the difficult 



so GREAT FAITH 227 

days in which our faith was severely tested, 
when I was cashier in Quai de Vakny, and I 
had not a shilling, and we had to pay the 6000 
francs for rents and other expenses. I shall 
never forget my overwhelming joy when one 
night I appealed to the cadets who could pray 
with faith, and when ^ve or six of us prayed 
with me in the little kitchen of the Quai de 
Valmy. The next day the Marechale received 
by the first post a cheque of 6000 francs from 
some one who did not know that we were in 
need." 

In one of her tournees the Marechale was 
labouring down in the South of France. 
Though she was in the greatest need and had 
a heavy heart, she went on with her meetings, 
when a lady who had been wonderfully blessed, 
and two of whose children had been saved 
through her ministry, was moved to give her 
a thankoffering of 5000 francs. Having to 
travel all night on the way back to Paris, and 
finding herself alone among a lot of working- 
men the Marechale put the money in her 
bosom and prayed, "Now keep Thy little one," 
but did not dare to sleep. 



228 THE MARECHALE 

Among the Army's unfailing supporters in 
France were the Marechale's personal friends. 
One of the dearest of these was Madame de 
Bunsen, nee Waddington, who wrote In Three 
Legations, They first met in Cannes, where 
the Marechale was conducting a campaign in 
the theatre; and a great bundle of letters, 
partly in French and partly in English, testi- 
fies to the warmth of their friendship. Madame 
de Bunsen once persuaded the Marechale to 
rest for some weeks in her castle on the Rhine ; 
and another time she tried to induce her to 
visit Florence, but the Marechale could never 
quite get over the feeling that taking holidays 
was backsliding. 

Another of her constant supporters was 
Mr. Frank Crossley, that high-souled man of 
business whose Life has been admirably writ- 
ten by Rendel Harris. Soon after the Mare- 
chale went to France he wrote to express his 
"ardent sympathy" with her work. "I have," 
he said, "met and known well several Christian 
workers — ^D. L. Moody, Miss EUice Hopkins, 
Miss Mittendorif , and others — ^but I will tell 
you that perhaps none of these have created 
the same impression that you have done." 



so GREAT FAITH 229 

In one of her last letters she wrote "Tell me, 
how is it that what seems so far off to us is 
near to you." She was a beautiful soul and 
found peace in Christ. 

She received hundreds of letters from him, 
and they are very interesting reading. What 
chiefly attracted him to the Marechale was her 
intimacy with Christ, which was the reward, 
as he saw, of self-sacrifice. His words on this 
theme go very deep. 

"It is a struggle hard and long, but it is 
only the struggling, who spend their life-blood 
in the cause, that can claim feZood-relationship 
with the Lord Jesus. The rest are second- 
cousins or not even as near as that. They 
don't know Him very intimately or feel much 
at home with Him when they pay Him a 
morning call. . . . He makes the entrance 
high and the gate strait that it may be prized 
when gained — I believe that is the key to the 
mystery of life, or at least to a large part of it. 
To let us up to the top for the prayer of a 
moment and the sacrifice of nothing would in 
many cases at any rate be impossible and use- 
less. Tell me soon more of how to climb. I 
am a slow learner." 



230 THE MARECHALE 

Mr. Crossley's nature had a pensive strain 
which the Mareehale's friendship helped to 
modify. Regarding such a matter he felt that 
"speech should not go near the length of feel- 
ing," but ere long we find him writing, "Das 
hallelujah Vogelein singt in meinem Herzen." 

His donations to the work of the Army both 
at home and in France were very generous. 
He gave the Marechale many thousand pounds 
a year. His liberality was part of his wor- 
ship of Christ. Nothing could be finer than 
the following: "I know you will be thinking 
it is a serious slice off my capital. Well, it 
is a branch off the tree. *They broke off 
branches from the palm trees and strewed them 
in the way and shouted Hosanna,' and so do I." 
And again: "You are very grateful to me 
for what I have been able to give you, but if 
you knew how indebted and grateful I also felt 
to you, you would see how God makes us 
unequal that we may teach ourselves by the 
aid and necessary services He enables us to 
render." Mr. Crossley wished the Marechale 
to accept a gift of £10,000 for the mainte- 
nance of her family, that she might be per- 
sonally free from financial care, and also of- 



so GREAT FAITH 231 

fered to build her a home outside Paris, but 
she declined both these offers, not wishing to 
be in a different position from the other officers 
of the Army. 

In 1891 the Marechale went to America to 
raise funds for the work in France. Accom- 
panied by her secretary, Mme. Peyron — who 
was her Geneva convert Mile. Roussel — she 
sailed in October by the Columbia for New 
York, and visited twenty-eight of the princi- 
pal cities of the States and Canada, holding 
sixty meetings, travelling sometimes for thirty 
or forty hours at a stretch, and once with the 
added experience of being snowed up for 
twelve hours. She was everywhere very cor- 
dially received, and all the buildings in which 
she spoke were densely crowded. Ministers 
offered her churches in which a woman had 
never spoken before. After one meeting she 
received invitations from a Bishop and seven- 
teen pastors to address congregations on her 
work. 

The reporters everywhere found her and her 
utterances good copy. "She was not able to 
see representatives of the press in New York, 
although they came by dozens," as one learns 



232 THE MARECHALE 

from the Boston man who claimed to be "her 
first American interviewer." He found that 
"her life in France has given a Gallic twist to 
this Englishwoman's tongue. She is quite as 
French in manner as her staff -captain, 
Madame Peyron, the dark-eyed Frenchwoman 
who travels with her." 

One morning she got a great reception from 
the divinity students of Yale, to whom she 
spoke at length on the qualifications necessary 
for "saving souls," namely, the possession of 
a pure heart and the baptism of the Holy 
Spirit. "When she had finished her address 
she said she was willing to answer any ques- 
tions they might have to ask, and for half an 
hour the students and several of the profes- 
sors poured a host of questions upon her that 
would have embarrassed and muddled the 
clearest-brained ministers of the country under 
similar circumstances. She, however, showed 
that she had answered questions before, and 
gave answers that brought both laughter and 
applause, for her wit is keenly cultivated." 

It is interesting to see her through Yale eyes. 
"Her face is a study the like of which an ar- 
tist or a sculptor might seek for years vdthout 



so GREAT FAITH 233 

finding. In repose it reminds one of the pic- 
tures of the Madonnas of Michael Angelo, 
but when she speaks its earnestness is so in- 
tense that it is ahnost stern. Her voice is one 
that any actress might well covet for its depth 
and strength. It is the equal of the great 
Bernhardt 's, and yet it is sweet and soft, and 
has none of the harshness of the masculine tone. 
Her accent is something charming, for it has 
aU the attractiveness of the English tongue 
made even more sweet by long familiarity with 
the French language. From her long ac- 
quaintance with the lower classes, the socialists 
and all free-thinkers of France, she has ac- 
quired that fiery directness and ease and attrac- 
tiveness in her speaking which is so character- 
istic of French oratory and so fascinating to 
Americans. It is no injustice to this remark- 
able woman to say that, had she chosen the 
stage for her role in life, her name would have 
certainly been as famous in that profession as 
it is to-day as the Marechale of the French Sal- 
vation Army." 

In America she had the mimense happiness 
of being reunited with her brother Balhngton, 
who, being a year older than herself, had been 



284 THE MARECHALE 

her chum in childhood, and his wife, nee Maud 
Charlesworth, who had been her brave girl- 
comrade in the first days of persecution in 
Switzerland. 

In the end of January, 1892, the Marechale 
returned to France, after an absence of three 
months and a half. America had given her 
$60,000 for her work, and memories of un- 
limited kindness. 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 



CHAPTER XIII 

BEAUTY FOR ASHES 

"You have added a new word to the French 
language," said M. Sarcey, the famous critic, 
to the Marechale; "I mean the word 'Salu- 
tiste.' " In 1881 there was not a single Sal- 
vationist in France or Switzerland. After fif- 
teen years there were 220 stations and outposts, 
over 400 officers, headquarters in five cities, 
and four weekly papers. 

But these bare facts only feebly indicate 
what the Marechale did for France. In a mo- 
ment of depression at the thought of French 
infidehty, the Princess Malzoif once remarked 
to her — 

"The French have no soul." 

"How dare you," asked the Marechale, "say 
such a thing?" 

Her friend replied with charming inconsis- 
tency, "But you have found the soul of 
France!" 

287 



238 THE MARECHALE 

That was perhaps the highest tribute ever 
paid to her. 

If one asks some Frenchman who knew the 
Marechale in those days how she won the heart 
of France, one gets the answer, "But it is 
natural — she has the French temperament; 
and, besides, elle aime la France/' If one asks 
some convert of hers how she f oimd the soul 
of France, the reply is, "Ah! she brought us 
the Christ, who is victorious everywhere." Both 
questions were answered together by one who, 
speaking for many, said, "She bought us at 
the price of tears and sacrifice." 

When she was at the zenith of her power in 
France, an admirable appreciation of her was 
written^ by one of the saints of the modern 
calendar. Miss Frances E. Willard. We ex- 
tract a few sentences. "She inherits, it is said, 
beyond any other of the endowed and conse- 
crated eight children of the General and Mrs. 
Booth, their special gifts, graces, and grace. 
. . . The Marechale's career already fulfils 
her father's prophecy that women will, if once 
left free in their action, develop administra- 
tive powers fully equal and oftentimes supe- 

^ The Review of the Churches, Feb. 1894. 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 239 

rior to those of men. . . . *I love France/ she 
said to me, with sparkling eyes: *it is a great 
and wonderful country, and I love its people 
every bit as much as ever I loved my own. 
I have become familiar with its peasants in the 
provinces; have sat down with the French 
women who clatter about in sabots ; have shared 
their chestnuts with them, heard of their sor- 
rows as well as their joys, and, believe me, the 
human heart is just the same in France as it 
is everywhere; and if you classify the saints 
whose histories have come down to us, France 
would occupy the front rank. The nation that 
has produced a Lacodaire, a Pascal, a Fenelon, 
and a Madame Guyon, does not lack the germs 
of spiritual life.' " 

In 1896, however, her career in France 
came to an end. She received the com- 
mand to go and devote herself to the work 
of the Army in Holland, and loyally prepared 
to obey. 

Catholics and Protestants alike were dis- 
mayed at the news. One of her dearest 
friends, the Catholic scholar M. Lassaire, 
whose exquisite translation of the four Gospels 



240 THE MARECHALE 

had the honour of being put upon the Index 
Expurgatorius, came to her and said — 

"You ought not to leave us. God has given 
you the ear of the nation as it is given only 
once in a hundred years." 

"But I am commanded." 

"If the angel Gabriel descended from 
heaven and bade you go, you ought not to leave 
France!" 

Theodore Monod, whose own family had 
been greatly blessed through the Marechale, 
deeply sympathised with her, and grieved over 
her departure almost as if she had been his own 
daughter, but tried to comfort her by saying, 
"You leave us your hymns!" 

The day on which the Marechale left France 
was one of the two or three dark days of her 
life. She felt somewhat like the young Scot- 
tish Queen who said as she gazed at the re- 
ceding shores of Calais — 

"Adieu ! mon charmant pays de France, 
Adieu! te quitter c'est mourir.** 

And yet she believed in her heart that God 
would work out His gracious purpose, which 
no circumstances can ever alter. 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 241 

That she loved France with a deep, pure, 
passionate love does not need to be said. How 
France appreciated her in return may be in- 
dicated not only by M. Sarcey's emphatic dic- 
tum, "The devil take the country where she 
was born! she is French in her soul," but by 
any letter taken at random from hundreds 
which she received from men and women of 
France. 

The following extract, faithfully translated, 
shows the cahbre of the people whom the 
Marechale was able to reach, as well as the 
warm, generous style in which the Latin races 
habitually express themselves. 

"The evening in which you spoke of the 
scene on Calvary and the words of the peni- 
tent thief, 'Remember me,' that simple story, 
told by a believing soul, had more effect upon 
me than all the theses, quotations and theologi- 
cal arguments of all the doctors I have ever 
heard. That expression, that attitude, that 
conviction, that certitude, that assurance, that 
living faith which affirmed itself before me in 
an apostle, a new disciple of Christ, and that 
melodious voice, completed my transformation. 
I believed that I was the penitent thief and you 



242 THE MARECHALE 

the Christ who said to me, 'When I am in 
Heaven I will remember thee,' and that af- 
firmation transported me. . . . 

"I marvel at the courage with which you 
endure fatigue, mockery, journeys, labours of 
all kinds to conquer for truth and light the 
millions of savages who are still in France, 
plunged in the darkness of error and supersti- 
tion. Permit me to express once again my 
sincere admiration, and to offer you in the 
name of my country (I am perhaps a little 
presumptuous to speak in the name of France, 
but I have the right, as much as the other ten 
millions of citizens) — in the name of my coun- 
try, and in the name of civilisation, my warm 
gratitude. Deign to accept the homage . . . 
of a very humble soldier and disciple of 
Christ." 

Swiss love, too, was now deep and strong, as 
will be sufficiently proved by a single letter, 
which enclosed a thankoffering. 

"Dear Marechale — (How much that word 
contains of affection, admiration, and venera- 
tion, I cannot express), — These thousand 
francs fulfil their end where they do the most 
good and give you the greatest pleasure. You 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 243 

always think of yourself last, if you think of 
yourself at aU; that is why others must think 
of you. I would have liked to relieve you, 
dear Marechale, you particularly and person- 
ally. But you are devoured by the zeal of 
your divine work, and all goes that way. Be 
it so! God will relieve you directly by His 
hand. He will, but do not forget yourself en- 
tirely, I beg of you. Care for yourself, for 
the sake of those who love you, and who need 
your help, and who fuid so much happiness in 
your heavenly affection. . . • In the love of 
Christ, your devoted, A. S." 

In the end of that year the Marechale needed 
words of good cheer, and they were not lack- 
ing. Her sister Eva was one of her comfort- 
ers, sending many tender messages across the 
Atlantic. Just after Christmas Day — Eva's 
own birthday — she wrote: "I cannot say how 
much you have been in my thoughts. I wished 
I could have popped in and had a sister's birth- 
day kiss and a good talk, but the Lord came 
veiy near to me, and I was cheered that His 
birthday found me very busy on mine seeking 
the poor lost souls of men. The years pass, 
but then what matters? Every day brings 



244 THE MARECHALE 

us nearer our Eternal home, does it not, and 
then we will live and love together for ever 
and ever, all of us. Dear, darling Katie, I 
don't like to hear you say the year has been a 
sad one. You are treasured by us all, by 
God and the world, and how much you have 
done for the Kingdom as well. . . . There are 
some fond memories I treasure which have to 
do with you and me, when I made you laugh 
and gave you baked potatoes! I will write 
again soon. Till then and for ever after al- 
ways the same, Eva." 

Commissioners E. D. and Lucy Booth-Hell- 
berg — the General's youngest daughter — who 
took over the command of the Army in France 
and Switzerland, wrote in their first Annual 
Report (1896) : *'One of the last links in the 
long chain of desperate efforts for the salva- 
tion of France, put forth with undiminished 
love and faith by the Marechale, was the Lyons 
campaign, which lasted for six weeks during 
the months of January and February. Sup- 
ported by a number of believing and hard- 
working officers, she conducted a series of truly 
remarkable meetings in the Salle Philhar- 
monique, which was filled on every occasion 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 245 

with an attentive and largely sympathetic audi- 
ence. The results of the campaign were most 
encouraging and of a decidedly permanent na- 
ture. The local corps, which up till then had 
led a very struggling existence, received a pow- 
erful lift and is now in a healthy condition. 
Furthermore a considerable amount of preju- 
dice against our work was removed and a num- 
ber of friends and sympathisers were made, 
the immediate result of which was the estab- 
lishment of a Rescue Home for women in that 
city." Later on Lucy wrote to the Marechale, 
"Darling, your love for France is wonderful; 
you cannot understand it." 

Had the Marechale been sent to another of 
the Latin races — for example, the Italians or 
the Spaniards — her gifts might still have been 
used to the highest advantage. She once con- 
ducted a brief campaign in a great hall at 
Turin. At the beginning she encountered a 
storm of opposition. While she dedicated the 
child of one of her former officers, her voice 
was drowned in an uproar which turned the 
solemn service into a fiasco. The audience got 
completely out of hand, and, as a final stroke 
of devilry, a troop of students, headed by a 



246 THE MARECHALE 

big fellow with an evil, cynical face, came 
marching up the aisle, shouting, yelling and 
brandishing sticks. The ringleader had made 
a bet that he would kiss the Marechale. Her 
officers began to think it was high time to 
close the meeting. But she was not near the 
end of her resources. Giving her familiar or- 
der, "Leave them to me, and pray!" she 
stepped to the edge of the platform, and, when 
the leader was within a foot of her, fixed her 
eyes on his face, raised her finger, and sang — ^ 

Si tu savais comme II t'aime. 
Sans tarder tu viendrais a Lui, 
Tu viendrais a I'heure meme, 
Tu viendrais des aujourd'hui. 

The clear, sweet notes went vibrating through 
the great hall, and Italy knows the power of 
song. The ringleader stood staring as if he 
had been petrified, and his followers did not 
advance another step. While the Marechale 
sang on, she was heard in breathless silence. 
Then she spoke for an hour. The af ter-meet- 

^ This hymn was composed by one of her officers, M. 
Grandjean. The tune was one of the sweetest operatic 
airs of the day. 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 247 

ing lasted till midnight, and the leader of the 
students, completely broken down and sobbing 
like a child, said, "Oh, stay with us, you will 
make angels of us all!" 

In Holland, where the Marechale laboured 
six years, she was heavily handicapped by the 
fact that most of her speaking had to be done 
through an interpreter. She had not that Open 
Sesame to the heart of a people — ^the mastery 
of its language. She learned, however, to 
sing beautifully in Dutch, and the translation 
of her addresses was admirably done by her 
secretary. If she could not deny that her 
heart was still in the Rue Auber of Paris, she 
repressed her tears and took her new task — a 
very tangled one — resolutely in hand, doing 
some deep and lasting spiritual work in Am- 
sterdam and other towns, where she sometimes 
had as many as forty or fifty penitents in one 
night. 

She was lacking in what a statesman called 
"Batavian grace," being cast in a very dif- 
ferent mould, yet she came ere long to feel 
quite at home among the warm-hearted Dutch 
people. She had taught Paris to sing her 
hynm, "Aimez toujours^ et malgrez tout aimez 



248 THE MARECHALE 

toujours/' and now she put the lesson into 
practice in Holland. Preaching and living 
the gospel of love, she had many tokens of suc- 
cess among all classes. Best of all, she awoke 
in others the wistful desire to imitate her ex- 
ample. One of Queen Willielmina's cabinet 
ministers brought his daughter, a thoughtful 
young girl, to a meeting conducted by the 
Marechale, and when those who were willing to 
give themselves to Christ and His service were 
invited to show it in some way, up went the 
hand of this eager girl. Her father at once 
whisked her out of the meeting. But the deed 
was done, and now there is no one who is 
doing a nobler work among the poor and 
sunken classes of Holland than Miss Rose 
Pierson. Of that happy day in her life she 
wrote long afterwards : "When I first heard the 
Marechale speak I was a girl of seventeen. 
I remember still every word she spoke. I know 
it was a revelation to me what a reality Christ 
could be to a soul. I believe that was what im- 
pressed me — ^her perfect assurance of Christ's 
presence and her own ardent love of souls." 
Holland gave the Marechale two of her most 
efficient secretaries, Miss Van der Werken and 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 249 

Miss de Zwaan, who ideally fulfilled all the 
requirements of the office — ability and willing- 
ness to nurse a babe, make a cup of tea, write 
a letter, cook a decent dinner, talk in two or 
three languages, keep the door of a hall, preach 
a sermon, and generally make the best of 
everything! 

It is possible that the Marechale's exile from 
France deepened and enriched her nature, 
drawing out stops not so often used before, 
especially the vox humana — the voice of sym- 
pathy with all human pain and sorrow. At 
the same time she began to have a more tragic 
sense of the world's sin, which prompted one 
of her strangest and yet most characteristic 
impulses, and issued in what was in some ways 
the most remarkable of all her campaigns. 

One midnight, while she lay awake in Am- 
sterdam, she heard a clear inner voice saying to 
her, "Go to Brussels ; go in sackcloth and ashes ; 
go and tell of sin; let everything in your per- 
son speak of sin and awaken conscience; then 
proclaim. Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh 
away the sin of the world." 

Without waiting to take counsel with flesh 



250 THE MARECHALE 

and blood, she went with her nurse-secretary 
Swaan and her babe Frida, the child of peace, 
to Brussels, and hired for three weeks the most 
beautiful hall in the city, the Salle de la Grande 
Harmonie — ^the same in which fair women and 
brave men danced on the eve of Waterloo. 

When she at length divulged to one of her 
comrades the fact that she was to appear in 
sackcloth and ashes, he answered — 

"You cannot! never!" 

"I must, it is so commanded." 

So a robe de bure was made for her — a 
single-seamed garment of the coarse brown 
stuff worn by monks, with a hole cut out for 
the neck and two for the arms, and a hempen 
rope for the waist. 

Before the opening meeting she had intimate 
dealings with her officers. "It is necessary," 
she said, "that one die for the people. I want 
to bring that thoughtless, frivolous city into 
touch with God. I wish your faces to speak 
of another world. It is your minds and hearts 
that I seek. If you are going to think of 
your own people and your own concerns, if 
you are going to be preoccupied with a hun- 
dred and one things, go back at once. I am 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 251 

going to live these three weeks as if they were 
the last on earth. I have left home and little 
ones and am going to exist for this town. If 
Christ laid down His life for us, we have got 
to lay down our lives for the salvation of 
Brussels." There were heart-searchings and 
confessions and tears among the officers ; fresh 
alliances were made with God; and the Mare- 
chale believed that this was one of the secrets 
of the wonderful success of that campaign. 

On the evening of the first meeting, she 
clothed herself in the robe de hure, and put real 
ashes on her head. But if ever the devil in 
person attacked any poor soul, the Marechale 
felt herself so assailed in those moments when 
the great hall was filling and she was waiting. 
What shafts of ridicule were hurled at her as 
by a spiritual foe! Could any dress be more 
ridiculous, any realism more contemptible? 
How comical was that assumption of the role 
of prophet ! What a miserable fiasco the whole 
performance would prove! She was seized 
with a paralysing fear, and when Antomarchi 
— ^her "St. Francis" — came to announce that 
the audience was ready, he found her white as 
a sheet and shaking from head to foot. 



252 THE MARECHALE 

"Have I made a mistake?" she asked. 

"No! Marechale, go on! go on! it is all 
right!" 

"Tell them to sing and pray, and then I 
will come." 

Her soul gathered strength from the strains 
of her own hymn, ^'O toi! bien-aime fils de 
Vhomme/^ with the chorus — 

Viens, Jesus t'appelle; 

Ne sois plus rebelle. 

Viens au bien-aime Fils de Dieu, 

Crois en sa tendresse eternelle — 

as well as from the succeeding silence in which 
she knew that faithful hearts were praying 
for her. The clouds vanished, the fear of men 
was gone, and only the awe of the unseen 
world remained upon her spirit. 

Slowly she walked onto the platform, not 
raising her eyes from the ground. The audi- 
ence seemed petrified by the strange appari- 
tion. After a moment of deathly silence, her 
clear, penetrating voice sounded through the 
hall. 

" *He was despised and rejected of men, a 
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 258 

. . . and we esteemed Him not. Nous n'en 
avons fait aucun cas/ 

"If I wear mourning to-night, it is the bet- 
ter to express the feelings which are in the 
depths of my heart. Your people, who are 
capable of great things, are going to their 
ruin. On all hands there are nameless miser- 
ies, despairing cries of women and children 
without defence and exposed to shame and the 
most frightful misery, and why? Because you 
have made Him — Christ — of no account. I 
mourn your sins, the sins of your country; 
the drunkenness, the debauchery, the selfish- 
ness, the wrongs which are seen everywhere; 
your rejection of the Christ of God, the Sav- 
iour of the world. This fills me with sorrow, 
and this, unless it is forsaken, will bring upon 
you the judgments of God." 

Thus she unburdened her soul, and thus be- 
gan not a three weeks' but a two months' 
campaign, which from the first moment — in so 
strange contrast to the tumultuous openings at 
Havre and Rouen — was marked by a beautiful 
reverence and solemnity. The services of the 
police were never required during the whole 
time. Four or five evening meetings were held 



254 THE MARECHALE 

every week, besides afternoon gatherings, sa- 
lon meetings, and midnight suppers. All Brus- 
sels was moved. An eminent statesman said 
to the Marechale, "Everybody has been ridi- 
culed here except you. Ridicule kills every- 
thing; you have killed ridicule." 

In the full tide of the mission she wrote to 
her father: "Most marvellously is God work- 
ing here in Brussels. Last night I had the con- 
cert-hall crowded and a great number were 
turned back at the door. The silence, the at- 
tention is unbroken, and there is conviction 
among all kind of persons. Worldly and 
Catholic papers speak beautifully of us. Four 
journals have given leading articles to me. 
Praise God, it is all His work ! This morning 
I had a conversation with a senator who is at 
the head of the party of progress here, and he 
says that the movement is the most remarkable 
"the city has seen for a hundred years and that 
the effects are profound and astonishing." An- 
other senator has sent me £20. I feel more 
than ever now I ought to continue and push 
the battle. We shall be able to do something 
extraordinary and put Belgium on a new foot- 
ing." 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 255 

The first senator referred to in the letter 
was M. le Jeune, who said to the Marechale — 

"The bar, the artist world, society, CathoUc 
and Protestant — they have all come to hear 
you. You are universal, Madame." 

"Yes," she answered, "the Christ is univer- 
sal." 

During these two months she had daily in- 
terviews with men and women crushed under 
the burden of all kinds of sin — a burden that 
weighed so heavily on her own spirit that some- 
times, instead of delivering an address, she 
could only fall on her knees and cry to God 
to forgive all the sins that come from the heart 
of man — ^murders, adulteries, thefts, unclean- 
ness, hes, blasphemies — all of which had been 
confessed to her. 

It was a time of wonderful spiritual bless- 
ing for all her comrades, who, like her, literally 
"lived for the people." One of them said, "We 
have grown as much with you in these weeks as 
in twenty years." 

To a thousand men of the elite of Brussels 
she delivered an address — which was after- 
wards published — on "The Greatest Injustice 
of the Century." It was a woman's mournful, 



256 THE MARECHALE 

tender, passionate protest against man's sins in 
a city which had its twelve thousand so-called 
filles de joie, many of them of the tenderest 
years. One of her audience, a typical Brussels 
man of the world, covering his face with a 
hand on which flashed a diamond ring, and 
shaking with great sobs of anguish, cried, "I 
am a leper — damned already!" "Madame," said 
an editor, "they would hiss anybody else who 
said these things to them. They bear them 
from you, because they feel you love them." 

One day she received an invitation to dine 
with a dozen anarchists. Her comrades told 
her of the danger of bombs, etc., but she went, 
and, many years after when asked by an Eng- 
lish Divine, "How did you get into such so- 
ciety?" she answered, "Extremes meet." 

"So you are come to talk to us," said Elisee 
Recluse^ with a smile, "of justification by 
faith and sanctification by faith," etc. 

"Oh, no, no! I do not talk of doctrines. 

^ Exiled from France as an anarchist, he had become 
a Professor in Brussels. He had been trained as a 
Protestant Pastor. He was the greatest geographer of 
modern times, the writer of Une nouvelle geographic 
universelle (19 vols.). 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 257 

They never troubled me in my life. I care only 
for realities. You have suffered; I too have 
suffered. Let us begin there, and compare 
notes. Some of you have been in prison; I 
have been in prison. You have been exiled; 
so have I. You have wept over the injustice 
and cruelties of the world; so have I wept, so 
do I weep." 

And thus they found common ground, 
agreeing in their diagnosis of the diseases of 
society ; differing only as to the remedy. "You 
beUeve in anarchy," said the Marechale. "One 
of your number said at one of my meetings 
that anarchy is the most beautiful of all re- 
ligions. I know a more excellent way — a 
shorter cut to making the world better. You 
fling your bombs to destroy life ; how can peo- 
ple be converted when their heads are gone? 
Christ said 'Follow me to Calvary!' He shed 
His own blood. No one else's. He bids us 
save the world by denying ourselves and taking 
up the Cross." 

That evening Elisee Recluse drove her in his 
carriage to her meeting at the Salle Harmonie^ 
and in her Uttle ante-room they prayed to- 
gether. 



258 THE MARECHALE 

A Brussels sculptor begged the Marechale 
to pose for him in her rohe de hure, but she 
declined. Renee Gauge, the heroine of the 
Belgian socialists, after passionately embrac- 
ing her before a thousand eyes, published a 
charming pen-and-ink portrait of "this enig- 
matic woman," comparing her to a serene, calm 
statue that almost smiles. "The fine and slen- 
der figure of the Marechale will long remain 
one of the most curious, the most strange ap- 
paritions in the midst of our society of money- 
makers and machine-constructors." 

The prophet, the mystic, the saint will always 
be a mystery to the art and science, not to 
speak of the sin and selfishness, of the world. 
This truth was finely expressed by a writer 
in JWArt moderne of Brussels. "The Mare- 
chale does not seek to 'demonstrate' anything. 
I have seen her shrug her shoulders a little and 
smile when some one wished to reason or dis- 
cuss with her. She could do it, for she is in- 
telligent and merveilleusement intuitive. But 
her faith does not 'demonstrate' itself. It lives 
and expands itself. It afiirms itself. And 
those who, now numerous, have some psycho- 
logical tact have felt that this woman obeyed 



BEAUTY FOR ASHES 259 

something more powerful than herself. Per- 
haps she is the happy and unconscious instru- 
ment of an expansive force too much ignored, 
too little recognised and obeyed, as necessary 
for our preservation as the law of self-preser- 
vation itself. . . . Her addresses are neither 
weighed nor balanced. But they have the col- 
our, the life, the strong suggestiveness, the 
moving sincerity of an inspiration come from 
one knows not where, from above us, from out- 
side us — mysterious impulses of things eter- 
nal." 



TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 



CHAPTER XIV 

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 

In the year 1902 the Marechale and her hus- 
band severed their connection with the Salva- 
tion Army. Concerning the causes that led 
to this, it is their united wish that nothing 
should be said that would interrupt the good 
feeling that has always existed, and still exists 
between them and thousands of their old and 
dearly loved comrades in that organization. 

There are those who have misjudged the 
Marechale in this matter, as having taken this 
step for personal advantage, and without due 
regard to its effect on her father and his work. 
How httle do they know the truth. To one 
who has read the correspondence of those days, 
and all other days since, who has watched with- 
in the inner circle of the home, overhearing the 
most confidential conversations, nothing could 
be so shocking a contravention of the truth as 
to accuse this devoted daughter either of par- 



264 THE MARECHALE 

ental disregard, or self-willed unconcern for 
the welfare of the Kingdom of Christ. This 
step cost heart's blood to the Marechale. 

"Katie," said the General in Victoria Sta- 
tion, when she was starting on her second jour- 
ney to France, "you have remarkable instincts; 
follow them, and you will never go wrong." 
Twenty years after, her friend Mile. Constance 
Monod, the daughter of the great French 
preacher, wrote to her, "I would beseech you 
to trust yourself, trust your divine instinct, 
which God has developed so, so wonderfully in 

you." 

Heredity, training and experience had com- 
bined to give her the instincts of a prophetic 
soul-winner. The grace of God had imparted 
to her a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Her 
intuitions were at once her strength and her 
safety. Her instinctive love of the true, the 
beautiful, and the good, her instinctive hatred 
of the false, the sordid, and the selfish, formed 
the touchstone to which she brought everything 
in the moral, social and religious life of France. 
Great numbers of the elite of Paris and other 
cities, who were technically far better educated 



TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 265 

than she, came and sat at her feet, because they 
bowed to the authority of the Christ- Spirit in 
her. And her instincts of sympathy with poor, 
sick, suffering souls drew multitudes who were 
outside the pale of the Church to the Saviour. 

She always maintained that she went on her 
mission as a simple English girl, doing only 
what any other girl, with the same opportuni- 
ties and the same faith, might have done. 
There is a divine power in a woman's instincts 
of purity and righteousness which puts the 
baseness of men to shame. That power, many 
believe, will be the chief factor in the salva- 
tion of the modern Church and modern so- 
ciety. Ours is an age which needs Deborahs 
and Huldahs with their divine instincts. The 
Song of Songs tells how a simple Hebrew girl, 
tempted by the glory of the world, but strong 
in her passion of holy love, merited the wonder- 
ful ascription, "Fair as the moon, clear as the 
sun, terrible as an army with banners/' If the 
Christian womanhood of the twentieth century 
rises to that level, the future of the Kingdom 
of God will be far more glorious than its past. 

The Marechale's instincts for the beautiful 
in nature and in art doubtless constituted no 



266 THE MARECHALE 

small part of her charm for the Latin races. 
She looked at all the glory of heaven and earth 
with a poet's eyes. During her early crowded 
life of evangelism in England, her father once 
took her on a tour through the Trossachs of 
Scotland, and the memory of that vision of 
beauty at the age of sixteen ever afterwards 
haunted her like a passion. "Let me stay 
here!" she said to the General, whose reply, 
calling a soldier to arms, equally remained in 
her memory: "Men are more interesting than 
scenery." If she scarcely ever took holidays 
in after life, it was not that she did not some- 
times sigh for the wings of a dove that she 
might fly away and be at rest. There was a 
lifelong conflict between the natural and the 
ascetic in her. 

She had never had time to cultivate any art 
except music, but her sense of everything 
lovely in form and colour and sound was ex- 
quisite, and she became without study a su- 
preme artist in at least one department. At 
the time of the coronation of Queen Wilhel- 
mina of Holland, there was a grand Exhibi- 
tion of all that women can do in the modern 
world. A deputation waited on the Marechale 



TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 267 

and begged her to give an address along with 
two other well-known lady speakers. She 
agreed to come, provided she should be allowed 
to choose her own subject. Consent was read- 
ily given, and she delivered an address in 
French upon what Christ has done for Wom- 
an and what Woman for Christ. She gave 
no thought to the manner of delivery; she 
merely realised that she had a golden opportu- 
nity of proclaiming her Saviour to a magnifi- 
cent audience. She had never in her life re- 
ceived a lesson in elocution, and to have done 
so might have seemed to her wicked backslid- 
ing. But she was awarded the palm of elo- 
quence. 

If her scholastic education was somewhat 
defective, she was wonderfully guided by her 
instincts in her later self -education. During 
her American tour she was taken one day by 
three white-haired professors to see the greatest 
library in the States. Her unsophisticated 
mind was bewildered by all that mass of learn- 
ing. "Surely," she said, "it must strike despair 
into the minds of the students !" 

One of her guides questioned her about her 
own favourite books. 



268 THE MARECHALE 

"Well," she answered, "I have never been 
a reader; I think I have only two." 

"What might they be?" 

"One of them you know." 

"Yes, the Bible; what is the second?" 

"The Heart of Man. I am always at it, 
on land and sea, in the streets and in railway 
carriages, morning, noon and night. It helps 
me with my first book better than any com- 
mentary." 

She came to know the Bible with a thorough- 
ness which not one man in ten thousand ever 
attains. Her spiritual instinct seized, and her 
extraordinary memory retained, the vital and 
the essential. She never studied the Bible in 
the ordinary way, sitting down with lexicon 
and concordance. There was no time for that 
in her busy life. She took her spiritual food 
from the Bible as the bee sips honey from 
flowers. The Bible was her companion and 
she read it for pleasure. She absorbed and 
assimilated it without effort. That she knew 
much of it by heart was of less importance 
than the fact that it became part of herself. 
Therein lay her power of expounding and ap- 
plying it. "Nothing," said Dr. Munroe Gib- 



TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 269 

son after listening to her nightly for a week, 
"charmed our people more than her expositions 
of Scripture." 

The truths by which she lived came to her 
intuitively. Her religion did not consist of 
commandments and dogmas. It was Uf e, light, 
liberty, and above all love. Alike in what 
she accepted and what she rejected, she acted 
instinctively — she could do no other. She had 
an aversion to religious controversy. Argu- 
ments made little or no impression upon her 
mind. She might sometimes be overwhelmed 
with theological doctrines, the truth of which 
she could neither affirm nor deny, but in the 
end she would emerge with the naive remark, 
"I am a very simple child, and I must have a 
child's religion." She always held that Christ's 
rehgion is for the multitude, and that the mul- 
titude are children. The essence of Christian- 
ity can be assimilated by boys and girls who 
do not know how to read and write, and they 
may become saints and saviours. A glance at 
the Marechale's well-used Bible suffices to 
prove that for her the heart of the Old Testa- 
ment is in Hosea, the prophet of love, and 
Isaiah the prophet of atonement, while the 



270 THE MARECHALB 

heart of the New Testament is in the story 
of the returning prodigal or the penitent Mag- 
dalene. 

Genius is never easy to understand. Its 
weakness is often related to its strength. It 
has what the French call the defects of its 
qualities. A great part of the Marechale's 
power certainly lay in her childlike humility. 
As a soul-winner she never gave the impres- 
sion of condescending. She did not need to 
stoop; by nature and by grace she was meek 
and lowly in heart. What drew multitudes 
of poor sinners to her was their assurance that 
she would hear with human sympathy their 
tales of sin and sorrow. At one of her mid- 
night suppers a French lady said to her, "I 
have been here all these years trying to bring 
these poor girls together. How is it that you 
succeed where I fail, in getting them to open 
their hearts to you?" 

"Perhaps," said the Marechale, "it is because 
I do not make them feel that there is a differ- 
ence between them and me." 

With her humility there was bound up a 
certain measure of self -distrust. In her, as 



TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 271 

in her father, whom she resembled so strongly 
in spirit as well as in featm^es, there was an 
extraordinary combination of confidence and 
diffidence. It used to be said by those who 
knew the General most intimately that, while 
he conunanded an Army, he was apologetic to 
his cook. And if the Marechale had a splendid 
moral courage, as her manner of dealing with 
hostile crowds abundantly proved, she had also 
a womanly timidity in which there lay a cer- 
tain subtle danger. So long as she had faith 
in her God-given instincts, and in the indi- 
vidual guidance of the Holy Spirit, she was 
unconquerable, but if anything undermined 
them her power was for the time being para- 
lysed. For the criticisms of the world she cared 
little or nothing, but the real love and under- 
standing of her comrades was as the breath of 
life to her. From them she was always eager 
to learn, and sometimes she let the judgment 
of others obscure her spiritual and womanly 
intuitions. 

She would sit at the feet of this or that 
teacher who spoke with an air of wisdom and 
authority, when in nine cases out of ten the 
relation of teacher and taught ought to have 



272 THE MARECHALE 

been reversed. As a rule, her instincts made 
her a swift and unerring discerner of spirits, 
but there were exceptional cases in which it 
almost seemed disloyalty to "try the spirits 
whether they are of God." One of her life- 
long friends, Mr. W. T. Stead, who went down 
on the ill-fated Titanic ^ knew both sides of her 
character — her lion-Hke boldness as well as her 
dove-like gentleness. He used to relate how she 
one day invaded the office of the Pall Mall 
Gazette, and sunmioned him with all the cate- 
gorical imperiousness of her nature and her 
mission to quit politics and edit the War Cry, 
Yet he used to say to her, with a seriousness 
that was not altogether assumed, "You are 
damned by your humility !" 

It is well known that the Marechale's hus- 
band was for a time a believer in Dr. Dowie, 
the Scotsman who founded Zion City beside 
Chicago. Finding that certain doctrines such 
as Faith Healing, the Second Advent, the Rap- 
ture of the Saints, which were to him, as to 
thousands of others, of vital importance, — 
were being faithfully preached by one who 
claimed to be the second Elijah, the Forerun- 
ner of Christ, Mr. Booth- Clibborn became a 



TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 273 

member of the Christian Catholic Church. 
(Having been a Quaker minister before his 
twenty years of faithful service in the Sal- 
vation Army, he also cherished the hope of per- 
fecting Zionism by adding to it his own peace 
principles. 

The Marechale could not accept Dr. Dowie's 
claims, but in her intense desire for family 
unity she consented to go with her husband 
to see Zion City, taking her two eldest daugh- 
ters, Evangeline and Victoria, then fourteen 
and thirteen years of age, and baby Josephine, 
who was but four months old, with her. They 
remained there four months, July to October, 
1902. 

The diary and letters which she wrote dur- 
ing that visit are psychologically and Spiritu- 
ally among the most interesting human docu- 
ments I have ever seen, and sufficiently indi- 
cate her attitude of mind at this time. But 
let us draw a veil, except for one or two inci- 
dents and extracts, over the dark anguish of 
soul, the torture of uncertainty, and the depths 
of despair which she then passed through. 

She implored Dr. Dowie to take her husband 



274 THE MARECHALE 

and ordain him without her, but he emphati- 
cally refused to do so. 

The following paragraph, taken from her 
diary, shows in what a painful predicament she 
found herself. Speaking of a friendly ad- 
viser, she says: "He said, as I was the wife, 
the responsibility was on my husband, and I 
must stand by him, even if he was in error, and 
God would forgive me if it was a mistake." 
I felt so much taken aback by the way he 
looked at the matter that I turned the key of 
my heart. 

To one of her dearest friends she wrote a 
long letter, which was a cry out of the depths : 
"I am not easily given to discouragement or 
despair, but my position must make angels 
weep, if they can weep. I cannot bring myself 
to accept Dowie, so much in him violates the 
highest spiritual instincts I have. . . . The 
forcing of me outwardly does not convince 
me. I have yielded all along the line, and now 
here I am . . . but I am not in despair. I 
have been. It seems to me as if God, who 
has seen the long agony, will himself open the 
door. I cannot go further in this direction. 
... I feel a fear over everything. I never 



TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 275 

was so unutterably unhappy in my life, never. 
Oh, will you not help me?" 

One day the prophet was attacking some 
noted evangelists of the day. Presently he 
began to fulminate against the Salvation 
Army, and accused the General of f aiUng to 
reprove the sins of the rich. The Marechale 
leapt to her feet, and facing the prophet with 
outstretched finger and flashing eye, an image 
of outraged justice, exclaimed, "That is an un- 
truth! No man has been more faithful in re- 
proving the rich than my father and it is 
cowardly of you to attack a man who is not 
here to defend himself." The prophet visibly 
quailed under the withering rebuke. It was 
the first time any one had withstood him to 
the face. With an hour of thundering oratory 
he tried to obliterate the impression made on 
the vast audience, but for once he was evidently 
checkmated. 

At length Dr. Dowie, seeing he could not 
overcome the Marechale's opposition, and that 
her unwilling presence in the city was a dis- 
turbing factor among his people, requested 
her and her husband to withdraw. Mr. Booth- 
Clibborn, of whose absolute sincerity there can 



276 THE MARECHALE 

be no doubt, was keenly disappointed at hav- 
ing to turn his back upon Zion, which had be- 
come to him, as the Salvation Army in its early 
days a cause to live for, and if need be to die 
for. 

The strain on the Marechale had been so 
great that when she arrived in England she 
was utterly prostrated. Two dear old cousins 
of her husband's, the Misses Susan and Esther 
Bell, in Eastbourne, nursed her back to hfe. 
Then came two dark, silent years in Brussels. 
The Marechale looked for a friend and found 
none. All the world believed that she had 
"joined Zion." The French papers announced 
that she had burned (brule) the principles for 
which she had once fought. Her daughter 
Victoria, who was with her in those years of 
lonely sorrow, writes : "Gradually her strength 
left her. She suffered dumbly, vainly hoping 
for some deliverance. Was this the Marechale 
who had led her army to battle and faced the 
howling mob with a smile on her face? Her 
sorrow had crushed and sapped her courage 
which the storm of persecution only served to 
quicken." 

Her children had starvation staring them in 



TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 277 

the face; another terrible illness, brought on 
by household care, laid her low; her spirit was 
exhausted by the torturing strain of years; 
and she could hold out no longer. In a "blind 
faith, without conviction," she was received 
into Zion Church. Broken on the wheel of life, 
stretched too long upon the rack of this tough 
world, she accepted — ^like Savonarola and Gali- 
leo, like Cranmer and Jeanne d'Arc — an alien 
creed, without her reason being convinced or 
her heart won. 

But — again like those — not for long. Her 
deliverance came in a startling fashion. Soon 
after her removal with her family to Paris, her 
husband began to suffer from the effects of a 
neglected influenza which settled in his knee. 
True to his principles, he refused to see a doc- 
tor. When he was at the brink of death, the 
Marechale brought in a physician in the guise 
of a friend. The sick man's case was at first 
pronounced to be hopeless, but three of the fin- 
est surgeons of Paris were hastily summoned, 
performed four operations, and saved his life, 
leaving him, however, crippled for the rest of 
fais days. 

The dismissal of Mr. Booth-Clibborn fol- 



278 THE MARECHALE 

lowed as a matter of course. He had violated 
the strictest laws of Zion by accepting the aid 
of surgery. Two of his own converts, now 
followers of Dr. Dowie, invaded the sick room, 
and handed him the fateful document. Some 
time afterward he wrote: "Dowie was a good 
man at one time. So was the devil. Dowie 
fell through the same sin — Pride." In addi- 
tion to a statement which was published in four 
countries, he has recently borne the following 
conclusive testimony: "The Marechale would 
never have had anything to do with Dr. Dowie 
but for me. When she came near him it was 
on every occasion unwillingly. She suffered 
unutterable anguish, pain and grief, from the 
fact that from the first all her instincts, as well 
as the consciousness of her true religious inter- 
est, were against Dr. Dowie's spiritual person- 
ality, his ways, his claims, his style of govern- 
ment. If, in a kind of despair, she went with 
me into it, though she was in it she was not 
of it. It was never sought, it was endured. 
The only comfort in the enduring was the 
possibihty of doing a Uttle good meanwhile 
to people in it, and of ultimately helping in the 
opening of my eyes." 



SURSUM CORD A! 



CHAPTER XV 
SURSUM corda! 

All the Marechale's hearers remember her 
penetrating gaze. No one ever encountered 
her eyes and saw them shift. Thousands have 
felt as if she were looking through all dis- 
guises into their very souls, and her tapering 
index finger has often made the bravest quail. 
"All through the night," wrote a convicted 
sinner, "I saw her finger pointing straight at 
me." And one feels certain that her look was 
never more direct, never more searching, than 
when it was turned inward. She has always 
had a passion for seeing things as they are, 
especially the things of the spirit. 

We are not surprised, therefore, at her often 
repeated words: "This experience has taught 
me the folly of violating God-given instinct, 
and allowing the inner light of God's Holy 
Spirit to be darkened by man. When I com- 
pare myself with what I was in the past, in 

281 



282 THE MARECHALE 

many respects it seems as if that person was 
dead!" 

Drawn by the cords of love, held by ties too 
sacred to be broken, worn by years of poverty 
and sickness, and moving at last in a kind of 
trance, more dead than alive, one of God's 
truest and bravest servants blindly stxmibled 
on till she found herself, for a time of agony, 
in a spiritual prison-house from which there 
seemed to be no escape. 

Her greatest danger lay in a kind of fatalis- 
tic submission, which would have meant per- 
manent disloyalty to her own ideals and con- 
victions, as well as the abandonment of her vo- 
cation. She read the letters of Pere Didon, 
whose heroic acceptance of his destiny influ- 
enced her in the direction of sinking her in- 
dividuality. And one cannot understand the 
exquisite torture of her position unless one 
realises that her mind had often been made an 
arena of conflict between the apparently irrec- 
oncilable claims of the domestic and the apos- 
tolic hf e. And yet. Father Hyacinth once said 
to her in Paris, "You are the only woman I 
have ever met who has reconciled the vocation 
of a mother with that of an apostle." It may 



SURSUM CORD A! 283 

be appropriate to say here that the prayers of 
both father and mother have been answered in 
the conversion of their ten children, who have 
of their own free will consecrated themselves 
to the service of Christ. Four sons and three 
daughters are already engaged in active evan- 
gelistic work, and have been used of God for 
the conversion of many souls. 

To bring the Marechale back to liberty, God 
used the voices of nature, of children and of 
friends. 

She had always had a poet's sensitive ear for 
earth's thousand voices of praise, and, sitting 
in a garden on a spring morning, she wrote: 
"The past, whoever was right or wrong, shall 
be buried. Let the dead bury their dead. 
Leave it, and this beautiful spring-tide let us 
begin again. The crocuses and snowdrops in 
this lovely garden all say, 'New Resurrection 
life!'" 

Her own children's voices called her back 
into the thick of the old spiritual battle. "Now 
for the children," she wrote; "they must all see 
some salvation work, and they will feel the 
glow of the heavenly fire. It will warm them, 
and say something far more than all the Bible 



284 THE MARECHALE 

lessons in the world." Her eldest daughters, 
at that time girls of sixteen and fifteen, but 
with a wisdom far beyond their years, literally 
pushed her into the war, and if ever she was 
unable to go they buckled on their armour and 
took her place. "Mother writes me," says Vic- 
toria in her journal, "that Evangeline held a 
beautiful meeting on Sunday because she her- 
self was too ill to go. Poor mother, it is dif- 
ficult for her to keep up her courage." This 
diarist of fifteen thus philosophises on the 
meaning of her mother's sorrow. "Everybody 
can understand why God lets people of the 
world, the infidels, the self-seekers, the indif- 
ferent, suffer. It is to bring them to Him- 
self through disappointments in the world, in 
themselves, and in others. But why He allows 
His children that love Him, those whose great- 
est wish is to serve Him — why He allows them 
to suffer is a mystery. Perhaps it is to bring 
them into still closer communion with Himself, 
so that they may become one with Him — His, 
body, soul and spirit, without reserve." 

The Marechale's friends helped to bring her 
back to her predestined work of soul-winning. 

During a time of awful silence, in which 



SURSUM CORDA! 285 

she never received a call and rarely a letter, 
she had not courage to visit any of her old 
comrades in Paris. Once, in her great sorrow, 
she wanted to get away to some sympathising 
friend and open her heart. At first she could 
think of no one, but suddenly she remembered 
a humble working woman, and, taking the 
train to Paris, she wearily climbed to the fifth 
story of a house in the Villette, sat down in 
this woman's little room, and burst into a flood 
of tears. Her friend tried to comfort her and, 
not quite understanding this passionate grief, 
made her lie down in her own bed while she pre- 
pared for her a delicious little French meal. 

Twenty years before, on a dark winter night, 
the Marechale was passing along the Seine 
embankment on the way to her place of meet- 
ing on the Quai de Valmy. She noticed a girl 
gazing at the dark, cold waters, and a voice 
told her that she was meditating suicide. 
Touching her arm she said — 

"Don't look at those black, cruel waters. 
Come with me and have a nice cup of coffee. 
You seem to be in trouble." 

The girl, whose face was dark and sullen, 
looked at her suspiciously, and did not speak. 



286 THE MARECHALE 

The Marechale gently pleaded with her to 
come and hear a lady sing. 

"She sings beautifully, and you will find 
light and warmth and comfort, and you will 
have a good cup of coffee. Do come with 
me." 

The girl at length consented and came. She 
heard the Marechale herself sing. She sat 
right through the service without opening her 
lips and with a hard look on her face. At the 
end the Marechale went down beside her, asked 
if she had enjoyed the meeting, and said a word 
to her about the goodness of God. At the 
mention of the name of God, the girl burst 
into passionate speech. 

"God! Don't talk to me of God! I hate 
Him. What has He done for me? Why did 
He take my mother? He doesn't care for me. 
If He did He would not have let me be born 
in prison. What have I done to deserve such 
a life as this? It isn't my fault." 

But, while the Marechale talked with her and 
prayed with her, the girl's heart was softened. 
She began to attend the meetings, and soon 
gave her heart to the Lord Jesus. Born in a 
prison, and saved from suicide in the Seine, she 



SURSUM CORD A! 287 

became in turn her rescuer's best comforter in 
an hour of supreme sorrow. 

When the Marechale at length plucked up 
heart to revisit England, after a long absence 
and silence, her steps were directed to the home 
of a dear friend and kindred spirit in South 
London. It was in early girlhood that Mrs. 
Holman of Jerviston was first attracted to the 
Marechale. Her mother had, as Lady Mayor- 
ess, invited Miss Booth, before the work began 
in France, to address a drawing-room meeting 
in her house, and the indelible impressions made 
on a receptive mind on that day proved an 
inspiration to a lifetime of quiet and devoted 
service of Christ. But so timid and dejected 
had the Marechale become that she dreaded the 
reception that might await her even in the 
home of a lifelong friend! She trembled as 
she dragged herself across Streatham Com- 
mon. She sat down on a seat and — her ruhng 
passion strong as ever — spoke to a beggar 
about his soul, feeling a certain new kinship 
with all outcasts and pariahs. When she stood 
before her friend's door she scarcely had cour- 
age to ring the bell, and if she had been told 
to go to the kitchen and have a cup of tea with 



288 THE MARECHALE 

the servants, she would have answered quite 
simply, "Yes, I will go." But Mr. Holman 
himself opened the door, and his hearty wel- 
come and the outflow of a perfect sympathy 
at once cast all her fears to the winds. Her 
friends were ministering angels to her. They 
nursed her back to health, dried her tears, and 
made her smile. Their little daughter — now 
one of the sweetest singers in London— car- 
olled to her every morning and awoke "the hal- 
lelujah bird" again in her own breast. And 
God Himself was meanwhile doing for her 
what even the best of friends could not do — 
giving her the Resurrection Life, re-animating 
her hope, baptising her afresh with the Spirit, 
not of fear, but of power and of love, breaking 
all shackles and making her free — free from 
the ensnaring fear of man, free to obey the 
Divine call she had received even as a child — 
woman's Pentecostal call to prophesy for 
Christ, her one and only Master. 

Aller An fang ist scJiwer, and the difficulties 
which the Marechale encountered at the re- 
sumption of her work were enough to make 
any but the stoutest heart faint. If she had 
in the past shown a bravery transcending that 



SURSUM CORD A! 289 

of even the bravest all this was of small account 
compared to the heroism now required of her. 
In the past she had the help of her own people, 
her spiritual children, and a strong organiza- 
tion back of her. Now she was utterly alone, 
thousands all over the world had an erroneous 
conception of the entire situation, and many 
even believed she had made shipwreck of her 
faith. Her daughter Victoria stands out dur- 
ing that lonely period of beginnings. With 
remarkably clear judgment, discernment and 
sympathy she cheered and inspired her mother 
with her own enthusiastic hopefulness and vivid 
faith. 

The greatest service anyone could render the 
Marechale was to bid her go on, fulfil her des- 
tiny, believe that God would again mightily 
use and bless her. It might seem a small thing 
to say, "Be of good cheer," yet it was one of 
those "little nothings" for which she was ever 
afterwards profoundly grateful. I remember 
her coming one evening into my Chelsea study 
in a mood of depression, baffled by life's in- 
soluble mysteries. Wondering what would 
lighten for her the burden and the weary 
weight, I took down Browning and began to 



290 THE MARECHALE 

read "Rabbi ben Ezra," which was new to her. 
From the opening words — 

The best is yet to be^ 

The last of life, for which the first was planned — 

to the magnificent close, that inspired Sursum 
Corda thrilled her as a message direct from the 
great Heart of God. Only in one thing did 
she venture to differ from the poet. "He sees 
his heaven beyond," she said; "I want mine 
down here in the salvation of souls." 

As soon as she resumed her work, she had her 
reward in signs following everywhere. Doors 
opened to her, first in England, then in Scot- 
land, Ireland and Wales. She brought the 
breath of life into many churches, rekindled 
the zeal of many workers for Christ, and broke 
the chains which had bound multitudes of 
souls to an evil past. 

Her own experience had given her, as a 
physician of souls, perhaps a deeper sympathy, 
a surer insight, a greater power to grapple with 
every form of evil than ever she had before. 
It became her mission to save people from 
themselves by convincing them that only one 
thing is entirely worth doing — living like Christ 



SURSUM CORD A! 291 

by letting Christ live in them. There are cer- 
tainly few evangelists who have changed the 
whole current of so many lives in our country. 
Young ladies about to pass within convent 
walls have found a more excellent way by re- 
ceiving the living Christ into their hearts. Ac- 
tors and singers have consecrated their gifts 
to Christ and His kingdom. Young men of 
the world have heard the call of God and re- 
solved to enter the ministry or go to the mis- 
sion-field. God's gift of life has revealed to 
many questioning eyes its glorious possibilities. 
Multitudes who had no faith have heard an- 
other say that she has faith for them — a faith 
which has somehow dispelled the mists of doubt 
and error and brought them into the sunhght 
of Divine love. 

At the same time her ever-deepening knowl- 
edge of her two books, the Bible and the Heart 
of Man, have made her a unique preacher to 
prachers. One night at Keswick, in the sum- 
mer of 1907, a brilliant young Scottish minis- 
ter, who was a member of a large house-party 
of clergymen attending the annual Conven- 
tion, came home late for supper. 

'•'Excuse me," he said, as he sat down, "but 



292 THE MARECHALE 

I could not tear myself away from the open-air 
meeting in the Square. I never heard such 
speaking in my life. I stood transfixed. The 
preacher was the daughter of General Booth, 
and I never knew the English language was 
such a magnificent weapon until to-night. Her 
preaching was extraordinary." 

Next day, through Dr. Harry Guinness, who 
was her host, she was invited to address that 
house-party. Another preacher who was pres- 
ent has recorded his impressions. "After tea 
we all gathered our chairs in a circle round 
her as she opened up some sacred chapters in 
her life. Hour after hour sped. No one thought 
of moving to go to the Tent meetings. There 
we sat spellbound, through a long evening, 
feeling we had never come across such a being 
before. This was the first of many such meet- 
ings, to which as many outsiders were invited 
as the large drawing-room could hold. What 
evenings these were! Highland worthies sat 
gazing at her with open-mouthed wonder, held 
by her witchery, her strange tales from actual 
life, by her wisdom and pathos. Her voice, 
rich and sweet, sometimes fell to dreamy ca- 
dences, and sometimes rose to the bugling of 



SURSUM CORD A 1 293 

a gale. It thrilled people and it melted them. 
Her eyes were wonderful. Sometimes they 
rested on one person in the audience with a 
soft and appealing look ; then they gleamed and 
blazed with holy passion. Her long arms with 
their fine tapering fingers — ^how they helped 
to express her mind! But it was the face that 
was the great exponent, and as emotions played 
on her own mobile features she also touched 
the deep chords of every minister's heart. 
What struck us most was the access she won 
to the hearts of penitents. The mother-love 
in her was so deep and real that we all felt 
as if we, too, could give her our sacred confi- 
dences. A favourite word of hers was from 
St. Augustine, *Love, and do as you like,' and 
every man in our company felt she was a living 
illustration of it. Her beautiful and choice 
language, simple, fresh, exquisitely fitting, 
and used with superb ease and mastery, was a 
constant amazement. She never attempted ad- 
dresses or expositions, but her talks, for no 
other name would she apply, were now and 
again gemmed with texts which came as with a 
flash of diamonds, flaming." 

Thus she revealed herself to men who know 



294 THE MARECHALE 

that the care of all cares is the "cure" of souls 
— cura curarum cura animarum. She warned 
them that the "apostolic life," the most Christ- 
Hke of all vocations, is only for those who are 
willing to "fill up that which is lacking of the 
sufferings of Christ." Prayer and fasting, 
love and sacrifice, real asceticism combined with 
joyful enthusiasm are the conditions of suc- 
cess in the never-ending warfare with evil. 
The world will always be a broad field of bat- 
tle. But the living Christ gives so much of 
His real presence that His service is liberty and 
His rewards are sure. No breath of human 
praise can compare with the fervent and life- 
long gratitude which souls rescued from the 
powers of darkness bear to their deliverer. 
Since the Marechale laid aside the French lan- 
guage — perhaps only for a time — and resumed 
her mother-tongue, she has received literally 
thousands of English letters from both conti- 
nents testifying to blessings received through 
her ministry. I here give a few carefully se- 
lected extracts from these letters with a few 
words of introduction. 

One Sunday morning, as the Marechale 
was about to address a large congregation, the 



SURSUM CORDA! 295 

minister whispered to her : "You see those two 
young ladies in black, if you can do anything 
with them, it would be a miracle." 

In one of the after-meetings of the mission, 
the Marechale approached the elder of these 
ladies and ventured to speak with her, but in- 
tense reserve on her part made conversation 
impossible. A cloud of utter despair seemed 
to have settled on her spirit. The look in her 
eyes revealed sorrow too deep for words. 

This is her story: 

"At twelve o'clock one night I was return- 
ing home from business with my mother and 
only sister. I found the body of my father 
hanging in the corridor! I was so horrified 
that for a moment I could not move, then, re- 
covering my presence of mind, I put out the 
lights and called my mother and sister to an- 
other door, just in time to prevent them seeing 
the sight. But I can never forget it! 

"Then my mother's health broke down, and 
for four years I faithfully watched and cared 
for her. 

"During this second painful trial I received 
the startling news that my dearest and only 
brother had met with a serious accident while 



296 THE MARECHALE 

driving his own automobile. On arriving at 
the hospital in all haste I was met with the 
words, *Too late.' He was gone! The scene 
which followed is too terrible for me to speak 
of. We adored him ! The effects of the shock 
hastened my mother's death. We said good- 
bye to her, and oh^ the recollection of it haunts 
me still. 

"After my mother's death my sister and I 
left the house of tragedy, broken down with 
sorrow and grief. These blows were beyond 
my powers of endurance. In vain did I seek 
some ray of comfort. Then I grew careless! 
Wine began to get a hold on me; and I sank 
into depths of despair, of which you only know. 
I really thought there was no God, and con- 
templated ending my own existence. 

"Through it all the Lord was looking down 
in tender compassion and love. He sent you 
at this critical time in my sad career. 

"When I look back on the past I can only 
praise God for what He has done for me, 
through you. 

"I am now conscious of the fact that He 
has washed and redeemed me through the pre- 
cious blood. Jesus is very dear to me. He is 



SURSUM CORD A! 297 

the Lily of the Valley, the fairest of ten thou- 
sand to my soul. The pleasures of the world 
have henceforth no attraction for me, in Him 
I can overcome all temptations." 

The following is from a gentleman in 
America, who, for thirty-five years, had never 
entered a church. He happened to hear the 
Marechale once, and, rushing into the vestry, 
he broke down utterly and told her the tragi- 
cal story of his life. 

He was an illegitimate child, and his mother 
often used to beat him until the blood ran. 
As a lad he struggled hard to be good, and, 
although he was sometimes led astray through 
the drink, he always shunned anything of an 
immoral character. 

He married a sweet German girl, and by 
honest labour obtained a very good position in 
New York, where he was esteemed by all who 
knew him. 

At this juncture he met the French woman 
who ruined his life. He told the Marechale 
between his sobs that his wife naturally refused 
to have him back. Remorse and anguish of 
mind had driven him twice to attempt suicide, 



298 THE MARECHALE 

but he was miraculously rescued. In January, 
1914, he writes: 

"Dear Marechale and honored Spiritual 
Mother: 

"It was with joy that I received your dear 
letter. God has indeed been wonderfully good 
to me, an undeserving sinner! He has rolled 
away the stone from a heart heavy with sin 
and sorrow. I thank Him daily for His mercy, 
and wonder how I could ever have lived so long 
without Him. ISTo wonder I failed and would 
have been lost, had I not found Him at last 
through you, dear Marechale. Life has a new 
meaning for me. It is a pleasure to live now, 
and before it was a curse. The musicians are 
playing ragtime while I am writing this, but 
God is playing another melody in my heart. 
I thank Him for the opportunity I have here 
to do good. God has indeed changed me. He 
has given me great power over the minds of 
my men. The change which, with His help, 
I have been able to effect in their natures in 
two short weeks is wonderful to see. I am 
happy, very happy. 

"There is surely a devil, for he has sorely 



SURSUM CORDA! 299 

tempted me, but I shake him off like a feather, 
smiling happily in my God-given strength. 
I say to him, *I fear you not, for I belong to 
Christ Jesus forever.' 

"I am indeed in an unholy place. It is given 
over to the devil in every form, but what mat- 
ters, I belong to Christ for all time. 

"In prayer and humiUty I thank and greet 
thee, Beloved Marechale." 

A beautiful girl in society writes the follow- 
ing: 

"All night long I have whispered your name 
over and over again to myself, saying, *You 
have given me life, Marechale, do you hear 
me? LIFE! ! ! !' I was dying of remorse and 
fear. I shudder when I think of what would 
have become of me if I had not come to you. 
I used to say to myself, 'Oh, well, what's the 
use, I have sinned beyond recall, so why not sin 
again, and again, and again? I am destined 
for Hell anyway, I may just as well get there 
as fast as I can' — that is what you have saved 
me from. 

"I wonder how many times I have prayed 



300 THE MARECHALE 

*Let me forget, only let me forget/ and the 
more I would pray, the more I would remem- 
ber, and the more I would remember the more 
terrified I would get, until life seemed to slip 
away from me, and I would fall down, down, 
down, into a bottomless pit of horror. . . . 
And now I LIVE! ! ! ! Oh, Marechale (how 
I love that name, it sounds like music to me!) 
My mother gave life to my poor miserable 
body, but you gave life to my soul. My mother 
would not mind me loving you so if she knew 
that you gave me back to her." 

Again she writes : "I have lived alone, abso- 
lutely alone. God only knows how utterly 
alone I have been! But now I have Him, a 
Some One who cares! Is it not wonderful, 
Marechale, I am no longer alone for I have 
my Christ? The warm thing that flames in 
my soul is the knowledge that He loves me! 
Now I know why all these years I have 
searched with empty hands for something. I 
have it now, I LIVE! ! ! !" 

A young gentleman whose life was trans- 
formed through attending the meetings held 



SURSUM CORD A! 301 

by the Marechale's family in Keswick writes 
from Beyrout, Syria: 

"Oh! what a responsibility it is for us to be 
the ambassadors of Christ, to represent Him 
to those who do not know Him, to be His 
Images ! If it were not for us Christians, who 
so often stand in His way, Christ might have 
a chance. Some of the college men are meet- 
ing daily in my room to pray and I wish you 
could hear them praying in English, Arabic, 
Turkish, Armenian and even Abyssinian. You 
would not understand the words, but you could 
never mistake the spirit. 

"To-day I invited a man whom I know is 
in the hold of a terrible vice. He came, and 
during the half hour he looked as though he 
had made a mistake in coming, but, before he 
left, he had led in prayer for strength to over- 
come temptation. 

"Don't you think America is a fine country? 
And yet, with all its great resources, oppor- 
tunities and phenomenal progress, it is a very 
wicked country in many parts. Races, nations 
and individuals may prosper and succeed in 
plans for betterment and still be without the 



302 THE MARECHALE 

realisation of God, — ^they may be *Good but 
Godless.' " 

With the tribute of one grateful heart this 
sketch may fitly close. 

"I have been used in the past in the conver- 
sion of hundreds of souls, but I made a com- 
promise and it has spelt ruin to my soul. No 
one knows how vile I have been, meriting de- 
sertion by God and man. ... I had resolved 
to end my existence, but somehow I was 
brought to that meeting to hear about that 
Russian lady. Even then I determined you 
should not influence me, but God somehow 
through you gripped my hf e. I saw myself 
in the true light as (I say the words not in 
their usual sense) a 'blasted hypocrite.' Don't 
forget to echo and re-echo the words that 
reached me, 'Compromise with the world spells 
ruin.' That burnt into my soul. ... I re- 
member while you spoke a big lump rising 
in my throat, and just as you were closing 
your address the thought came, *I wonder if 
she would understand.' Ay, more, I remem- 
ber how you received me that day. God bless 
you. I came out of hell. I have a clear sky. I 
want to let you know that the consciousness of 




THE MARECHALE 

{From a photograph taken at the Gainsborough Studio, Oxford Street, 
London, W ., in 1913) 



[Page 302 



SURSUM CORDA! 303 

forgiveness of the past has come with ahnost 
an overwhehning force, and an awful load has 
gone. No daughter ever loved mother more 
than I love you, I know that. Why is it? 
Because God made you the means of my sal- 
vation. My heart just bursts with love and 
gratitude. So I am yours, and at that last 
great day you will see it if I come through at 
last. . . . Dear one, have you ever thought 
of this — some one by a gallant effort rescues 
lives from fire or shipwreck; the world ap- 
plauds and honours the deliverer. You (by 
the grace of God) rescued me from shipwreck 
of soul. Christ will own it before His Father 
and all the countless multitudes." 



THE END 



APPENDIX 

It will interest the readers of this book to know that 
Mrs. Booth-Clibborn, accompanied by her daughter Vic- 
toria^ and her son William^ is at the present time travel- 
ling through the United States of America. 

The spiritual results of her preaching amply testify 
to the need of the churches for just her message, which 
is a Call to Arms, as well as a gospel of hope. 

She is also receiving financial help for work in this 
country and an evangelistic campaign which she hopes 
to make in the music halls and theatres of France. 

Ever since leaving her adopted country she has 
secretly yearned to return and do something more for 
it. There is now a unique opportunity in that nation 
for the simple Gospel of Jesus, unfettered by ceremonial, 
ritual or forms of worship of any kind. The French 
have rejected their mother Church. They are tired of 
unreality in religion, they are sceptical, but unsatisfied 
and seeking. Nothing but the Christianity of Christ 
which means salvation, love and service will win them. 

"The Theatre is my church," said a Frence membre 
de'V Academie to the Marechale, therefore the theatre 
will be her principal field of labor. They will not come 
to us, we must go to them. 

The Marechale's remarkably gifted children are ac- 
tively engaged in the Service of Christ, and are ready to 
help their mother in this great effort. This is a cause 
for praise, especially when one considers the numerous 
claims on both the time and strength of their parents, 
and the financial burden of their upbringing which has, 
for ten years, fallen exclusively on their mother's shoul- 
ders, Mr. Booth-Clibborn being more or less an invalid. 

If after such a life of devotion and ceaseless toil the 
Marechale is willing to face all the fatigue and self- 
sacrifice which such efforts as the above will involve, the 
least we can do is to come forward and assist her in 
every way possible. 

PLEASE ADDRESS ANY COMMUNICATION I 

MRS. CATHERINE BOOTH-CLIBBORN, 
THIRTY-EIGHT WEST THIRTY-SECOND STREET, NEW YORK. 
CARE GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. 



\Hl* tytU^iff^UM^fU, 



LIBRARY OF 



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